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BEQUESV OF 

ALBERT ADSIT CLEMONS 
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Rfe. , . V 






PARABLES FROM NATURE. 


I 


“As hieroglyphics preceded letters, so parables were more 
ancient than arguments.” — L ord Bacon. Preface to the 
* Wisdom of the Ancients ” 














PARABLES FROM NATURE. 


BY|MRS. ALFRED GATTY, 


AUTHOR OF “ PROVERBS ILLUSTRATED,” “ WORLDS NOT 
REALIZED,” AND THE U FAIRY 
GODMOTHERS.” 




FIRST AND SECOND SERIES . 





LONDON: 

GEORGE BELL AND SONS, YORK STREET, 

COVENT GARDEN. 


1884. 



) x > 


yii 


Bequest 

Albert Adsit Clemons 
Aug. 24, 1938 
(Not for exchange) 


CHISWICK PRESS t— C. WHITTINGHAM AND CO., TOOKS COURT, 

CHANCERY LANE. 


$ ^ 


iparablee, 


WHICH WEEK ORIGINALLY INSCRIBED 

TO 

GEOKGE JOHNSTON, ESQ. M.D. LL.D. Etc. 

OF BERWICK-UPON-TWEED, 

ARE, IN TIIEIR RE-ISSUE, DEDICATED TO 
HIS MEMORY, 

BY A GRATEFUL AND REGRETTING FRIEND, 






PREFACE TO THE FIRST SERIES. 



JjHERE are two books/’ says Sir Thomas 
Browne, in bis Religio Medici , “ from 
whence I collect my divinity ; besides 
that written one of God, another of 
his servant, Nature — that universal and public 
manuscript that lies expanded unto the eyes of all: 
those that never saw Him in the one have dis- 
covered Him in the other.” And afterwards, as if 
giving a particular direction to the above general 
statement, he adds : “ Those strange and mystical 
transmigrations that I have observed in silkworms 
turned my philosophy into divinity. There is in 
these works of Nature, which seem to puzzle 
reason, something divine, and hath more in it than 
the eye of a common spectator doth discover.” 

Surely these two passages, from the works of the 
celebrated physician and philosopher, may justify 
an effort to gather moral lessons from some of the 
wonderful facts in God’s creation : the more espe- 


Vlll 


PREFACE 


cially as St. Paul himself led the way in such a 
mode of instruction, in arguing the possibility of 
the resurrection of the body from the resurrection 
of vegetable life out of a decayed seed : “ Thou 
fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened 
except it die ! ” Thou fool — fool ! not to be able, 
in thy disputatious wisdom, to read that book *bf 
“ God’s servant, Nature/’ out of which there are 
indeed far more actual lessons of analogy to be 
learned than we are apt to suppose, or can at once 
detect. Assuredly, the changes of the silkworm, 
and the renewal of life from vegetable seed, are not 
more remarkable than the soaring butterfly rising 
from the earth grub — a change which, were the 
caterpillar a reasonable being, capable of contem- 
plating its own existence, it would reject as an 
impossible fiction. 

It was not, however, Sir Thomas Browne’s 
remarks which gave rise to these parables ; for the 
first was written in an outburst of excessive admi- 
ration of Hans Andersen’s Fairy Tales , coupled 
with a regret that, although he had, in several 
cases, shown his power of drawing admirable morals 
from his exquisite peeps into nature, he had so 
often left his charming stories without an object or 
moral at all. Surely, was the thought, there either 
is, or may be devised, a moral in many more of 
the incidents of nature than Hans Andersen has 
tried for ; and on this view the “ Lesson of Faith ” 
was written — an old story ; for the ancients, with 
deep meaning, made the butterfly an emblem of 


PREFACE. 


IX 


immortality — yet, to familiarise the young with so 
beautiful an idea seemed no unworthy aim. 

“The Sedge Warbler” is open to the naturalist’s 
objection, that female birds do not sing. But it 
suited the moralist that they should do so in this 
particular case ; and who would not err in such 
company as Spenser, Milton, Thomson, Beattie, and 
the immortal Isaak Walton ? 

“ And in the violet-embroider’d vale, 

Where the love-lorn nightingale 
Nightly to thee her sad song mourneth well.” 

Song of Comus — Milton. 

“ And Philomele her song with teares doth steepe.” 

The Shepherd's Calendar , Nov 
Spenser. 

“But the nightingale, another of my airy creatures, breathes 
such sweet loud music out of her instrumental throat, that it 
might make mankind to think that miracles had not ceased.” 
— Walton’s Angler. 

u All abandoned to despair, she sings 
Her sorrows through the night ; and on the bough 
Sole sitting, still at every dying fall 
Takes up again her lamentable strain.” 

Thomson’s Seasons — Spring. 

** And shrill lark carols clear from her aerial tour.” 

Beattie’s Minstrel. 

An interesting account of the first discovery of 
the Sedge Warbler, of its habit of singing by night 
as well as by day, of its mocking notes, and of its 
distinctive differences from the Heed Warbler, may 
be found in White’s History of Selborne. 

Nothing but the present growing taste for the 


PREFACE. 


X 

use of the microscope, and the study of zoophytes, 
among other minute wonders of sea, earth, and sky, 
could justify the selection of so little popular a 
subject for a parable as will be found in “ Know- 
ledge not the Limit of Belief.” 

“The moon that shone in Paradise,” w'as the 
exclamation of a very melancholy mind, which 
failed to recognize in the thought the hope it was 
calculated to convey, and which it has now been 
attempted to teach. 

May the “ Lesson of Faith ” and the “ Lesson 
of Hope ” each work its appointed end, and may 
they combine to enforce on the mind of youth the 
value of that u still more excellent gift of charity,” 
which “hopeth all things, believeth all things, 
endureth all things ! ” 






CONTENTS. 


Page 

Lesson of Faith .... 1 

The Law of Authority and Obe- 
dience ... .9 


The Unknown Land 

• 


21 

Knowledge not the Limit of Belief 


34 

Training and Restraining 

. 


47 

The Light of Truth 

. 

• 

57 

Waiting .... 

. 

• 

67 

A Lesson of Hope 

. 

• 

78 

The Circle of Blessing 

. 


86 

The Law of the Wood 

. 

• 

. 105 

Active and Passive • 


• 

. 120 

Daily Bread 

. 

• 

. 145 

Not Lost, but Gone Before . 

. 

• 

. 168 

Motes in the Sunbeam 

• 

• 

189 


































































































































































































A LESSON OF FAITH. 


“ If a man die, shall he live again ? All the days of my appointed 
time will I wait, till my change come.” — Job xiv. 14 . 

ET me hire you as a nurse for my poor 
children,” said a Butterfly to a quiet 
Caterpillar, who was strolling along a 
cabbage-leaf in her odd lumbering way. 
“ See these little eggs,” continued the Butterfly ; 
“ I don’t know how long it will be before they come 
to life, and I feel very sick and poorly, and if I 
should *die, who will take care of my baby butter- 
flies when I am gone? Will you , kind, mild, green 
Caterpillar ? But you must mind what you give 
them to eat, Caterpillar ! — they cannot, of course, 
live on your rough food. You must give them early 
dew, and honey from the flowers; and you must 
let them fly about only a little way at first ; for, of 
course, one can’t expect them to use their wings 
properly all at once. Dear me ! it is a sad pity you 
cannot fly yourself. But I have no time to look for 
B 



2 


A LESSON OF FAITH. 


another nurse now, so you will do your best, I hope. 
Dear ! dear ! I cannot think what made me come and 
lay my eggs on a cabbage-leaf! What a place for 
young butterflies to be born upon ! Still you will 
be kind, will you not, to the poor little ones ? Here, 
take this gold-dust from my wings as a reward. Oh, 
how dizzy I am ! Caterpillar ! you will remember 
about the food ” 

And with these words the Butterfly drooped her 
wings and died ; and the green Caterpillar, who had 
not had the opportunity of even saying Yes or No 
to the request, was left standing alone by the side 
of the Butterfly’s eggs. 

“ A pretty nurse she has chosen, indeed, poor 
lady!” exclaimed she, “and a pretty business I 
have in hand ! Why, her senses must have left 
her, or she never would have asked a poor crawling 
creature like me to bring up her dainty little ones ! 
Much they’ll mind me, truly, when they feel the 
gay wings on their backs, and can fly away out of 
my sight whenever they choose ! Ah ! how silly 
some people are, in spite of their painted* clothes 
and the gold-dust on their wings !” 

However, the poor Butterfly was dead, and there 
lay the eggs on the cabbage-leaf; and the green 
Caterpillar had a kind heart, so she resolved to do 
her best. But she got no sleep that night, she was 
so very anxious. She made her back quite ache 
with walking all night round her young charges, 
for fear any harm should happen to them ; and in 
the morning says she to herself — 


A LESSON OF FAITH. 


3 


a Two heads are better than one. I will consult 
some wise animal upon the matter, and get advice. 
How should a poor crawling creature like me know 
what to do without asking my betters ?” 

But still there was a difficulty — whom should the 
Caterpillar consult ? There was the shaggy Dog 
who sometimes came into the garden. But he was 
so rough ! — he would most likely whisk all the eggs 
off the cabbage-leaf with one brush of his tail, if she 
called him near to talk to her, and then she should 
never forgive herself. There was the Tom Cat, to 
be sure, who would sometimes sit at the foot of the 
apple-tree, basking himself and warming his fur in 
the sunshine ; but he was so selfish and indifferent! 
— there was no hope of his giving himself the 
trouble to think about butterflies’ eggs. “ I wonder 
wdiich is the wisest of all the animals I know.” 
sighed the Caterpillar, in great distress ; and then 
she thought, and thought, till at last she thought of 
the Lark ; and she fancied that because he went up 
so high, and nobody knew where he went to, he 
must be very clever, and know a great deal ; for to 
go up very high (which she could never do) was 
the Caterpillar’s idea of perfect glory. 

Now, in the neighbouring corn-field there lived 
a Lark, and the Caterpillar sent a message to him, 
to beg him to come and talk to her ; and when he 
came she told him all her difficulties, and asked him 
what she was to do, to feed and rear the little crea- 
tures so different from herself. 

“ Perhaps you will be able to inquire and hear 


4 


A LESSON OF FAITH. 


something about it next time you go up high,” ob- 
served the Caterpillar timidly. 

The Lark said, “ Perhaps he should;” but he 
did not satisfy her curiosity any further. Soon 
afterwards, however, he went singing upwards into 
the bright, blue sky. By degrees his voice died 
away in the distance, till the green Caterpillar could 
not hear a sound. It is nothing to say she could 
not see him ; for, poor thing ! she never could see 
far at any time, and had a difficulty in looking up- 
wards at all, even when she reared herself up most 
carefully, which she did now ; but it was of no use, 
so she dropped upon her legs again, and resumed her 
w r alk round the Butterfly’s eggs, nibbling a bit of the 
cabbage-leaf now and then as she moved along. 

“ What a time the Lark has been gone!” she 
cried, at last. “ I wonder wffiere he is just now ! 
I w’ould give all my legs to know ! He must have 
flown up higher than usual this time, I do think ! 
How I should like to know where it is that he goes 
to, and what he hears in that curious blue sky ! He 
always sings in going up and coming down, but he 
never lets any secret out. He is very, very close ! ” 

And the green Caterpillar took another turn round 
the Butterfly’s eggs. 

At last the Lark’s voice began to he heard again. 
The Caterpillar almost jumped for j ->y, and it was 
not long before she saw her friend descend with 
hushed note to the cabbage bed. 

“ News, news, glorious news, friend Caterpillar!” 
sang the Lark: “ but the worst of it is, you won’t 
believe me!” 


A LESSON OF FAITH. O 

“ I believe everything I am told,” observed the 
Caterpillar hastily. 

“ Well, then, first of all, I will tell you what 
these little creatures are to eat” — and the Lark 
nodded his beak towards the eggs. “ What do you 
think it is to be ? Guess ! ” 

“ Dew, and the honey out of flowers, 1 am 
afraid,” sighed the Caterpillar. 

“ No such thing, old lady ! Something simpler 
than that. . Something that you can get at quite 
easily.” 

“ I can get at nothing quite easily but cabbage- 
leaves,” murmured the Caterpillar, in distress. 

“ Excellent ! my good friend,” cried the Lark 
• exultingly ; “you have found it out. You are to 
feed them with cabbage-leaves.” 

“ Never!” said the Caterpillar indignantly. “ It 
was their dying mother’s last request that I should 
do no such thing.” 

“ Their dying mother knew nothing about the 
matter,” persisted the Lark ; “ but why do you ask 
me, and then disbelieve what I say? You have 
neither faith nor trust.” 

“ Oh, I believe everything I am told,” said the 
Caterpillar. 

“ Nay, but you do not,” replied the Lark ; “ you 
won’t believe me even about the food, and yet that 
is but a beginning of what I have to tell you. Why 
Caterpillar, what do you think those little eggs will 
turn out to be?” 

“ Butterflies, to be sure,” said the Caterpillar. 


6 


A LESSON OF FAITH. 


“ Caterpillars !” sang the Lark; “ and you’ll 
find it out in time;” and the Lark flew away, for 
he did not want to stay and contest the point with 
his friend. 

“ I thought the Lark had been wise and kind,” 
observed the mild green Caterpillar, once more be- 
ginning to walk round the eggs, “ but I find that 
he is foolish and saucy instead. Perhaps he went 
up too high this time. Ah, it’s a pity when people 
who soar so high are silly and rude nevertheless ! 
Dear ! I still wonder whom he sees, and what he 
does up yonder.” 

“ I would tell you, if you would believe me,” 
sang the Lark, descending once more. 

“ I believe everything I am told,” reiterated the 
Caterpillar, with as grave a face as if it were a fact. 

“ Then I’ll tell you something else,” cried the 
Lark ; “ for the best of my news remains behind. 
You will one day be a Butterfly yourself.” 

“ Wretched bird!” exclaimed the Caterpillar, 
you jest with my inferiority — now you are cruel as 
well as foolish. Go away ! I will ask your advice 
no more.” 

“ I told you you would not believe me,” cried 
the Lark, nettled in his turn. 

“ I believe everything that I am told,” persisted 
the Caterpillar; “ that is” — and she hesitated, — 
“ everything that it is reasonable to believe. But 
to tell me that butterflies’ eggs are caterpillars, and 
that caterpillars leave off crawling and get wings, 
and become butterflies ! Lark ! you are too wise 


A LESSON OF FAITH. 7 

to believe such nonsense yourself, for you know it 
is impossible.” 

“ I know no such thing,” said the Lark, warmly. 
“ Whether I hover over the corn-fields of earth, or 
go up into the depths of the sky, I see so many 
wonderful things, I know no reason why there 
should not be more. Oh, Caterpillar ! it is because 
you crawl, because you never get beyond your cab- 
bage-leaf, that you call any thing impossible .” 

“ Nonsense ! ” shouted the Caterpillar, “ I know 
what’s possible, and what’s not possible, according 
to my experience and capacity, as well as you do. 
Look at my long green body and these endless legs, 
and then talk to me about having wings and a painted 
feathery coat ! Fool ! ” 

“ And fool you ! you would-be-wise Caterpillar ! ” 
cried the indignant Lark. “ Fool, to attempt to 
reason about what you cannot understand ! Do 
you not hear how my song swells with rejoicing as 
I soar upwards to the mysterious wonder-world 
above ? Oh, Caterpillar ! what comes to you from 
thence, receive as I do upon trust.” 

“ That is what you call — ” 

“ Faith,” interrupted the Lark. 

“ How am I to learn Faith ? ” asked the Cater- 
pillar — 

At that moment she felt something at her side. 
She looked around — eight or ten little green cater- 
pillars were moving about, and had already made a 
show of a hole in the cabbage-leaf. They had broken 
from the Butterfly’s eggs ! 


8 


A. LESSON OF FAITH. 


Shame and amazement filled our green friend’s 
heart, but joy soon followed ; for, as the first wonder 
was possible, the second might be so too. “ Teach 
me your lesson, Lark ! ” she would say ; and the 
Lark sang to her of the wonders of the earth below, 
and of the heaven above. And the Caterpillar 
talked all the rest of her life to her relations of the 
time when she should be a Butterfly. 

But none of them believed her. She neverthe- 
less had learnt the Lark’s lesson of faith, and when 
she was going into her chrysalis grave, she said — 
“ I shall be a Butterfly some day ! ” 

But her relations thought her head was wander- 
ing, and they said, “ Poor thing \ ” 

And when she was a Butterfly, and was going 
to die again, she said — 

“ I have known many wonders — I have faith — 1 
can trust even now for what shall come next ! ” 




THE LAW OF AUTHORITY AND 
OBEDIENCE. 


“Who made thee a ruler- and a judge over us?” — A cts vii. 27. 


FINE young Working-bee left his 
hive, one lovely summer’s morning, 
to gather honey from the flowers. The 
sun shone so brightly, and the air felt 
so warm, that he flew a long, long distance, till he 
came to some gardens that were very beautiful and 
gay; and there having roamed about, in and out of 
the flowers, buzzing in great delight, till he had s < f 
loaded himself with treasures that he could carry 
no more, he bethought himself of returning home. 
But, just as he was beginning his journey, he acci- 
dentally flew through the open window of a country 
house, and found himself in a large dining-room. 
There was a great deal of noise and confusion, for 
it was dinner-time, and the guests were talking 
rather loudly, so that the Bee got quite frightened. 
Still he tried to taste some rich sweetmeats that lay 
temptingly in a dish on the table, when all at once 
he heard a child exclaim with a shout, “ Oh, there’s 



10 


THE LAW OF 




a bee, let me catch him ! ” on which he rushed 
hastily back to (as he thought) the open air. But, 
alas ! poor fellow, in another second he found that 
he had flung himself against a hard transparent 
wall ! In other words, he had flown against the 
glass panes of the window, being quite unable, in 
his alarm and confusion, to distinguish the glass 
from the opening by which he had entered. This 
unexpected blow annoyed him much ; and, having 
wearied himself in vain attempts to find the entrance, 
he began to walk slowly and quietly up and down 
the wooden frame at the bottom of the panes, hoping 
to recover both his strength and, composure. 

Presently, as he was walking along, his attention 
was attracted by hearing the soft half-whispering 
voices of two children, who were kneeling down 
and looking at him. 

Says the one to the other, “ This is a working- 
bee, Sister ; I see the pollen-bags under his thighs. 
^Nice fellow ! how busy he has been ! ” 

“ Does he make the pollen and honey himself? ” 
whispered the Girl. 

“ Yes, he gets them from the insides of the flowers. 
Don’t you remember how we watched the bees once, 
dodging in and out of the crocuses, how we laughed 
at them, they were so busy and fussy, and their dark 
coats looked so handsome against the yellow leaves ? 
I wish I had seen this fellow loading himself to-day. 
But he does more than that. He builds the honey- 
comb, and does pretty nearly everything. He’s a 
working- bee, poor wretch ! ” 


AUTHORITY AND OBEDIENCE. 11 

“What is a working-bee? and why do you call 
him ‘ Poor wretch/ Brother?” 

“ Why, don’t you know, Uncle Collins says, all 
people are poor wretches who work for other people 
who don’t work for themselves ? And that is just 
what this bee does. There is the queen-bee in the 
hive, who does nothing at all but sit at home, give 
orders, and coddle the little ones ; and all the bees 
wait upon her, and obey her. Then there are the 
drones — lazy fellows, who lounge all their time 
Away. And then there are the working-bees, like 
this one here, and they do all the work for every- 
body. How Uncle Collins would laugh at them, 
if he knew ! ” 

“ Doesn’t Uncle Collins know about bees?” 

“No, I think not. It was the gardener who told 
me. And, besides, I think Uncle Collins would 
never have done talking about them and quizzing 
them, if he once knew they couldn’t do without a 
queen. I heard him say yesterday, that kings and 
queens were against nature, for that nature never 
makes one man a king and another man a cobbler, 
but makes them all alike ; and so he says, kings 
and queens are very unjust things.” 

“ Bees have not the sense to know anything 
about that,” observed the little Girl, softly. 

“ Of course not ! Only fancy how angry these 
working fellows would be, if they knew’ what the 
gardener told me !” 

“ What w’as that ?” 

“ Why, that the working-bees are just the same 


12 


THE LAW Or 


as the queen when they are first born ; just exactly 
the same ; and that it is only the food that is given 
them, and the shape of the house they live in, that 
make the difference. The bee-nurses manage that ; 
they give some one sort of food, and some another, 
and they make the cells different shapes, and so 
some turn out queens, and the rest working-bees. 
It’s just what Uncle Collins says about kings and 
cobblers — nature makes them all alike. But, look ! 
the dinner is over ; we must go.” 

“Wait till I let the Bee out, Brother,” said the 
little Girl, taking him gently up in a soft handker- 
chief ; and then she looked at him kindly, and said, 
“ Poor fellow ! so you might have been a queen if 
they had only given you the right food, and put 
you into a right shaped house ! What a shame 
they didn’t ! As it is, my good friend,” (and here 
her voice took a childish mocking tone) — “ As it 
is, my good friend, you must go and drudge away 
all your life long, making honey and wax. Well, 
get along with you ! Good luck to your labours ! ” 
And with these words she fluttered her handkerchief 
through the open window, and the Bee found him- 
self once more floating in the air. 

Oh, what a fine evening it was ! But the liberated 
Bee did not think so. The sun still shone beauti- 
fully though lower in the sky, and though the light 
was softer, and the shadows were longer; and as 
to the flow r ers, they were more fragrant than ever ; 
yet the poor Bee felt as if there were a dark heavy 
cloud over the sky; but in reality the cloud was 


AUTHORITY AND OBEDIENCE. 13 

over his own heart, for he had become discontented 
and ambitious, and he rebelled against the authority 
under which he had been born. 

At last he reached his home — the hive which he 
had left with such a happy heart in the morning — 
and, after dashing in, in a hurried and angry man- 
ner, he began to unload the bags under his thighs 
of their precious contents, and as he did so he ex- 
claimed, “ I am the most wretched of creatures ! ” 

“What is the matter? what have you done?” 
cried an old relation who was at work near him ; 
“ have you been eating the poisonous kalmia flowers, 
or have you discovered that the mischievous honey- 
moth has laid her eggs in our combs?” 

“ Oh, neither, neither ! ” answered the Bee, im- 
patiently ; “ only I have travelled a long way, and 
have heard a great deal about myself that I never 
knew before, and I know now that w r e are a set of 
wretched creatures ! ” 

• “And, pray, what wise animal has been per- 
suading you of that, against your own experience V* 
asked the old Relation. 

“ I have learnt a truth” answered the Bee, in 
an indignant tone, “ and it matters not who taught 
it me.” 

“ Certainly not; but it matters very much that 
you should not fancy yourself w retched merely be- 
cause some foolish creature has told you you are so ; 
you know very well that you never were wretched 
till you w T ere told you were so. I call that very 
silly ; but I shall say no more to you.” And the 


14 


THE LAW OF 


old Relation turned himself round to his work, 
singing very pleasantly all the time. 

But the Traveller-bee would not be laughed out 
of his wretchedness: so he collected some of his 
young companions around him, and told them what 
he had heard in the large dining-room of the country 
house ; and all were astonished, and most of them 
vexed. Then he grew so much pleased at finding 
himself able to create such excitement and interest, 
that he became sillier every minute, and made a 
long speech on the injustice of there being such 
things as queens, and talked of nature making them 
all equal and alike, with an energy that would have 
delighted Uncle Collins himself. 

When the Bee had finished his speech, there was 
first a silence and then a few buzzes of anger, and 
then a murmured expression of plans and wishes. 
It must be admitted, their ideas of how to remedy 
the evil now for the first time suggested to them, 
were very confused. Some wished Uncle Collins 
could come and manage all the beehives in the 
country, for they were sure he would let all the 
bees be queens, and then what a jolly time they 
would have ! And when the old Relation popped 
his head round the corner of the cell he was build- 
ing, just to inquire, “ What would be the fun of 
being queens, if there were no working-bees to wait 
on one?” the little coterie of rebels buzzed very 
loud, and told him he was a fool, for, of course, 
Uncle Collins would take care that the tyrant who 
had so long been queen, and the royal children, 


AUTHORITY AM D OBEDIENCE. 15 

now ripening in their nurse-cells, should be made 
to wait on them while they lasted. 

“And when they are finished ?” persisted the 
old Relation, with a laugh. 

“Buzz, buzz,’’ was the answer; and the old 
Relation held his tongue. 

Then another Bee suggested that it would, aftei 
all, be very awkward for them all to be queens; for 
who would make the honey and wax, and build the 
honeycombs, and nurse the children ? Would it 
not be best, therefore, that there should be no queens 
whatever, but that they should all be working bees ? 

But then the tiresome old Relation popped his 
head round the corner again, and said, he did not 
quite see how that change would benefit them, for 
were they not all working-bees already ; — on which 
an indignant buzz was poured into his ear, and he 
retreated again to his work. 

It was well that night at last came on, and the 
time arrived when the labours of the day were over, 
and sleep and silence must reign in the hive. With 
the dawn of the morning, however, the troubled 
thoughts unluckily returned, and the Traveller-bee 
and his companions kept occasionally clustering to- 
gether in little groups, to talk over their wrongs and 
a remedy. Meantime, the rest of the hive were too 
busy to pay much attention to them, and so their 
idleness was not detected. But, at last, a few hot- 
headed youngsters grew so violent in their different 
opinions, that they lost all self-control, and a noisy 
quarrel would have broken out, but that the Travel- 


16 


THE LAW OF 


ler-bee flew to them, and suggested that, as they 
were grown up now, and could not all he turned 
into queens, they had best sally forth and try the 
republican experiment of all being working-bees 
without any queen whatever. With so charming 
an idea in view, he easily persuaded them to leave 
the hive ; and a very nice swarm they looked as 
they emerged into the open air, and dispersed about 
the garden to enjoy the early breeze. But a swarm 
of bees, without a queen to lead them, proved only 
a helpless crowd, after all. The first thing they 
attempted when they had re-collected to consult, 
was, to fix on the sort of place in which they should 
settle for a home. 

“ A garden, of course,” says one. “ A field,” says 
another. “ There is nothing like a hollow tree,” 
remarked a third. “ The roof of a good outhouse 
is best protected from wet,” thought a fourth. 
“ The branch of a tree leaves us most at liberty,” 
cried a fifth. “ I won’t give up to any body,” 
shouted all. 

They were in a prosperous way to settle, were 
they not ? 

“ I am very angry with you,” cried the Traveller- 
bee, at last/; “ half the morning is gone already, 
and here we are as unsettled as when we left the 
hive ! ” 

“ One would think you were going to be queen 
over us, to hear you talk,” exclaimed the disputants. 
“ If we choose to spend our time in quarrelling, 
what is that to you? Go and do as you please, 
yourself 1 ” 


AUTHORITY A.ND OBEDIENCE. 17 

And he did ; for he was ashamed and unhappy ; 
and he flew to the further extremity of the garden 
to hide his vexation ; where, seeing a clump of 
beautiful jonquils, he dived at once into a flower 
to soothe himself by honey-gathering. Oh, how 
he enjoyed it ! He loved the flowers and the 
honey-gathering more than ever, and began his 
accustomed murmur of delight, and had serious 
thoughts of going back at once to the hive as 
usual, when, as he was coming out of one of the 
golden cups, he met his old Relation coming out 
of another. 

“ Who would have thought to find you here 
alone?” said the old Relation. “ Whefe are your 
companions ?” 

“ I scarcely know ; I left them outside the 
garden.” 

“ What are they doing?” 

“ . . . Quarrelling ...” murmured the Tra- 
veller-bee. 

“ What about?” 

u What they are to do.” 

“ What a pleasant occupation for bees on a sun- 
shiny morning!” said the old Relation, with a sly 
expression. 

“ Don’t laugh at me, but tell me what to do,” 
said the puzzled Traveller. “ What Uncle Collins 
says about nature and our all being alike, sounds 
very true, and yet somehow we do nothing but 
quarrel when we try to be all alike and equal.” 

“ How old are you ?” asked the old Relation, 
c 


18 


THE LAW OF 


“ Seven days,” answered the Traveller, in all the 
sauciness of youth and strength. 

“ And how old am I ? ” 

w Many months, I am afraid.” 

“ You are right., I am an oldish bee. Now, my 
dear friend, let us fight 1” 

“Not for the world. I am the stronger, and 
should hurt you.” 

“ I wonder what makes you ask advice of a 
creature so much weaker than yourself?” 

“ Oh, what can your weakness have to do with 
your wisdom, my good old Relation ? I consult 
you because I know you are wise; and I am 
humbled myself, and feel that I am foolish.” 

“ Old and young — strong and weak — wise and 
foolish — what has become of our being alike and 
equal? But never mind, we can manage. Now 
let us agree to live together.” 

“ With all my heart. But where shall we live ?” 

“ Tell me first which of us is to decide, if we 
differ in opinion ?” 

“ You shall, for you are wise.” 

“ Good ! And who shall collect honey for food ?” 

“ I will ; for I am strong.” 

“Very well; and now you have made me a 
queen, and yourself a working-bee ! Ah ! you 
foolish fellow, won’t the -old home and the old 
queen do ? Don’t you see that if even two people 
live together, there must be a head to lead and 
hands to follow? How much more in the case of 
a multitude ! ” 


AUTHORITY AND OBEDIENCE. 19 

Gay was the song of the Traveller-bee as he 
wheeled over the flowers, joyously assenting to the 
truth of what he heard. 

“Now to my companions/’ he cried at last. 
And the two flew away together, and sought the 
knot of discontented youngsters outside the garden 
wall. 

They were still quarrelling, but no energy was 
left them. They were hungry and confused, and 
many had already flown away to work and go home 
as usual. 

And very soon afterwards a cluster of happy, 
buzzing bees, headed by the old Relation and the 
Traveller, were seen returning with w r ax-laden thighs 
to their hive. 

As they were going to enter, they were stopped 
by one of the little senfinels who watch the door- 
way. 

“ Wait,” cried he ; “ a royal corpse is passing 
out ! ” 

And so it was ; — a dead queen soon appeared in 
sight, dragged along by working-bees on each 
6ide ; who, having borne her to the edge of the 
hive-stand, threw her over for interment. 

“ How is this? what has happened?” asked the 
Traveller-bee in a tone of deep anxiety and emotion : 
“surely our queen is not dead?” 

“ Oh, no ! ” answered the sentinel ; “ but there 
has been some accidental confusion in the hive this 
morning. Some of the cell keepers were unluckily 
absent, and a young queen-bee burst through her 


20 THE LAW OF AUTHORITY AND OBEDIENCE. 

cell, which ought to have been blocked up for a 
few days longer. Of course the two queens fought 
till one was dead ; and, of course, the weaker one 
was killed. We shall not be able to send off a 
swarm quite so soon as usual this year; but these 
accidents can’t be helped.” 

“ But this one might have been helped,” thought 
the Traveller-bee to himself, as with a pang of re- 
morse he remembered that he had been the cause 
of the mischievous confusion. 

“ You see,” buzzed the old Relation, nudging 
up against him, — “ you see even queens are not 
equal ! and that there can be but one ruler at 
once ! ” 

And the Traveller-bee murmured a heart-wrung 
“ Yes.” 

— And thus the instincts of nature confirm the 
reasoning conclusions of man. 




THE UNKNOWN LAND. 

* But now they desire a better country.” — Hebrews, xi. 16. 

T mattered not to the Sedge Warbler 
whether it were night or day ! 

She built her nest down among the 
willows, and reeds, and long thick 
herbage that bordered the great river’s side, and in 
her sheltered covert she sang songs of mirth and 
rejoicing both by day and night. 

“ Where does the great river go to?” asked the 
little ones, as they peered out of their nest one 
lovely summer night, and saw the moonbeams 
dancing on the waters, as they hurried along. 
Now, the Sedge Warbler could not tell her chil- 
dren where the great river went to ; so she laughed, 
and said they must ask the Sparrow who chat- 
tered so fast, or the Swallow who travelled so 
far, next time one or other came to perch on the 
willow-tree to rest. “ And then,” said she, “ you 
will hear all such stories as 4hese ! ” — and there- 
upon the Sedge Warbler tuned her voice to the 
Sparrow’s note, and the little ones almost thought 



22 THE UNKNOWN LAND. 

the Sparrow was there, the song was so like his — 
all about towns, and houses, and gardens, and fruit- 
trees, and cats, and guns; only the Sedge Warbler 
made the account quite confused, for she had never 
had the patience to sit and listen to the Sparrow, so 
as readily to understand what he said about these 
matters. 

But imperfect as the tale was, it amused the little 
ones very much, and they tried then to sing like 
it, and sang till they fell asleep ; and when they 
awoke, they burst into singing again ; for, behold ! 
the eastern sky was red with the dawn, and they 
knew the warm sunbeams would soon send beau- 
tiful streaks of light in among the reeds and flags 
that sheltered their happy home. 

Now, the Mother-bird would sometimes leave 
the little ones below, and go up into the willow- 
branches to sing alone; and as the season advanced 
she did this oftener and oftener; and her song was 
plaintive and tender then, for she used to sing to the 
tide of the river, as it swept along she knew not 
whither, and think that some day she and her hus- 
band and children should all be hurrying so onward 
as the river hurried, — she knew not whither also, — . 
to the Unknown Land whence she had come. Yes! 
I may call it the Unknown Land ; for only faint 
images remained upon her mind of the country 
whence she had flown. 

At first she used to sing these ditties only when 
alone, but by degrees she began to let her little 
ones hear them now and then, — for were they not 
going to accompany her? and was it not as well. 


TIIE UNKNOWN LAND. 


23 


therefore, to accustom them gradually to think 
about it. 

Then the little ones asked her where the Un- 
known Land was. But she smiled, and said she 
could not tell them, for she did not know. 

“ Perhaps the great river is travelling there all 
along,” thought the eldest child. But he was 
wrong. The great river was rolling on hurriedly 
to a mighty city, where it was to stream through 
the arches of many bridges, and bear on its bosom 
the traffic of many nations ; restless and mwded 
by day; gloomy, dark, and dangerous by night! 
Ah ! what a contrast were the day and night of 
the mighty city, to the day and night of the Sedge 
Warbler’s home, where the twenty-four hours of 
changes God has appointed to nature were but so 
many changes of beauty ! 

“ Mother, why do you sing songs about another 
land?” asked a young tender-hearted fledgling one 
day. “ Why should we leave the reed-beds and 
the willow-trees ? Cannot we all bijild nests here, 
and live here always ? Mother, do not let us go 
away anywhere else. I want no other land, and 
no other home but this. There are all the aits in 
the great river to choose from, where we shall each 
settle; there can be nothing in the Unknown Land 
more pleasant than the reed-beds and the willow- 
trees here. I am so happy ! — Leave off those 
dreadful songs ! ” 

Then the Mother’s breast heaved with many a 
varied thought, and she made no reply. So the 
little one went on — 


24 


THE UNKNOWN LAND. 


“ Think of the red glow in the morning sky, 
Mother, and the soft haze — and then the beautiful 
rays of warm light across the waters ! Think of 
the grand noonday glare, when the broad flags and 
reeds are all burnished over with heat. Think of 
these evenings, Mother, when we can sit about 
in the branches — here, there, anywhere — and watch 
the great sun go down behind the sky ; or fly to 
the aits of the great river, and sing in the long 
green herbage there, and then come home by 
moonlight, and sing till we fall asleep ; and wake 
singing again, if any noise disturb us, if a boat 
chance to paddle by, or some of those strange bright 
lights shoot up with a noise into the sky from 
distant gardens. Think, even when the rain comes 
down, how we enjoy ourselves, for then how sweet 
it is to huddle into the soft warm nest together, and 
listen to the drops pattering upon the flags and 
leaves overhead ! Oh, I love this dear, dear home 
60 much ! — Sing those dreadful songs about another 
land no more ! ” 

Then the mother said — 

“ Listen to me, my child, and I will sing you 
another song.” 

And the Sedge Warbler changed her note, and 
sang to her tender little one of her own young days, 
when she was as happy and as gay as now, though 
not here among the reed-beds : and how, after she 
had lived and rejoiced in her happiness many 
pleasant months, a voice seemed to rise within her 
that said — “ This is not your Rest !” and how she 


THE UNKNOWN LAND. 


25 


wondered, and tried not to listen, and tried to stop 
where she was, and be happy there still. But the 
voice came oftener and oftener, and louder and 
louder ; and how the dear partner she had chosen 
heard and felt the same ; and how at last they left 
their home together, and came and settled down 
among the reed-beds of the great river. And, oh, 
how happy she had been ! 

“ And where is the place you came from, Mo- 
ther ? ” asked the little one. “ Is it anywhere near, 
that we may go and see it?” 

“ My child,” answered the Sedge Warbler, “ it 
is the Unknown Land ! Far, far away, I know: 
but where , I do not know. Only the voice that 
called me thence is beginning to call again. And, 
as I was obedient and hopeful once, shall I be less 
obedient and hopeful now — now that I have been 
so happy ? No, my little one, let us go forth to the 
Unknown Land, wherever it may be, in joyful 
trust.” 

“ You will be with me ; — so I will,” murmured 
the little Sedge Warbler in reply; and before she 
went to sleep she joined her young voice with her 
mother’s in the song of the Unknown Land. 

One day afterwards, when the parent birds had 
gone off to the sedgy banks of a neighbouring 
stream, another of the young ones flew to the top- 
most branches of some willow-trees, and, delighted 
with his position, began to sing merrily, as he 
swung backwards and forwards on a bough. Many 
were the songs he tried, and well enough he sue- 


26 


THE UNKNOWN LAND. 


ceeded for his age, and at last he tried the song of 
the Unknown Land. 

“ A pretty tune, and a pretty voice, and a pretty 
singer!” remarked a Magpie, who unluckily was 
crossing the country at the time, and whose mis- 
chievous spirit made him stop to amuse himself, by 
showing off to the young one his superior wisdom, 
as he thought it. 

“ I have been in many places, and even once 
was domesticated about the house of a human 
creature, so that I am a pretty good judge of sing- 
ing,” continued Mr. Mag, with a cock of his tail, 
as he balanced himself on a branch near the Sedge 
Warbler; “but, upon my word, I have seldom 
heard a prettier song than yours — only I wish you 
would tell me what it is all about.” 

“ It is about the Unknown Land,” answered the 
young Warbler, with modest pleasure, and very 
innocently. 

“Do I hear you right, my little friend?” in- 
quired the Magpie, with mock solemnity — “ The 
Unknown Land, did you say? Dear, dear! to 
think of finding such abstruse philosophy among 
the marshes and ditches ! It is quite a treat ! 
And pray, now, what is there that you can tell an 
odd old fellow like me, who am always anxious to 
improve myself, about this Unknown Land?” 

“ I don’t know, except that we are going there 
some day,” answered the Sedge Warbler, rather 
confused by the Magpie’s manner. 

“ Now, that is excellent !” returned the Magpie, 


THE UNKNOWN LAND. 


27 


chuckling with laughter. “ How I love simpli- 
city ! and, really, you are a choice specimen of it, 
Mr. Sedge Warbler. So you are thinking of a 
journey to this Unknown Land, always supposing, 
of course, my sweet little friend, that you can find 
the way to it, w T hich, between you and me, I think 
there must naturally be some doubt about, under 
the circumstances of the place itself being un- 
known ; Good evening to you, pretty Mr. Sedge 
Warbler, I wish you a pleasant journey ! ” 

“Oh, stop, stop!” cried the young bird, now 
quite distressed by the Magpie’s ridicule ; “ don’t 
go just yet, pray. Tell me what you think your- 
self about the Unknown Land.” 

“ Oh, you little wiseacre, are you laughing at 
me ? Why what can any body, even so clever a 
creature as yourself, think about an unknown thing? 
You can guess , I admit, anything you please, about 
it, and so could I, if I thought it worth while to 
waste my time so foolishly. But you will never 
get beyond guessing in such a case — at all events, 
I confess my poor abilities can’t pretend to do any- 
thing more.” 

“Then you are not going there yourself?” mur- 
mured the overpowered youngster. 

“Certainly not. In the first place, I am quite 
contented where I am; and, in the second place, 
I am not quite so easy of belief as you seem to be. 
How do I know there is such a place as this Un- 
known Land at all?” 

“ My father and mother told me that,” answered 
the Sedge Warbler, with more confidence. 


28 


THE UNKNOWN LAND. 


“ Oh, your father and mother told you, did 
they ?” sneered the Magpie, scornfully. “And 
you are a good little bird, and believe everything 
your father and mother tell you. And if they were 
to tell you you were going to live up in the moon, 
you would believe them, I suppose?” 

“They never deceived me yet!” cried the young 
Sedge Warbler, firmly, his feathers ruffling with 
indignation as he spoke. 

“IToity, toity ! what’s the matter, now, my dainty 
little cock ? Who said your father and mother had 
ever deceived you? But, without being a bit 
deceitful , I take the liberty to inform you that they 
may be extremely ignorant. And I shall leave you 
to decide which of the two, yourself ; for I declare, 
one gets nothing but annoyance by trying to be good- 
natured to you countrified young fellows. You are 
not fit to converse with a bird of any experience 
and wisdom. So, once for all, good-bye to you !” 

And the Magpie flapped his wings, and was gone 
before the Sedge Warbler had half recovered from 
his fit of vexation. 

There was a decided change in the weather that 
evening, for the summer was now far advanced, 
and a sudden storm had brought cooler breezes 
and more rain than usual, and the young birds 
wondered, and were sad, when they saw the dark 
sky, and the swollen river, and felt that there was 
no warm sunshine to dry the wet, as was usual after 
a mid-day shower. 

“ Why is the sky so cloudy and lowering, and 


THE UNKNOWN LAND. 29 

why is the river so thick and gloomy, and why is 
there no sunshine, I wonder?” said one. 

“ The sun will shine again to-morrow, I dare 
say,” was the Mother’s answer; “ but the days are 
shortening fast ; and the storm has made this one 
very short ; and the sun will not get through the 
clouds this evening. Never mind! the wet has 
not hurt the inside of our nest. Get into it, my 
dear ones, and keep warm, while I sing to you 
about our journey. Silly children, did you expect 
the sunshine to last here for ever?” 

“ I hoped it might, and thought it would, once, 
but lately I have seen a change,” answered the 
young one who had talked to her mother so much 
before. “And I do not mind now, Mother. When 
the sunshine goes, and the wet comes, and the river 
looks dark and the sky black, I think about the 
Unknown Land.” 

Then the Mother was pleased, and, perched upon 
a tall flag outside the nest, she sang a hopeful song 
of the Unknown Land; and the father and children 
joined — all but one l He, poor fellow, would not, 
could not sing; but when the voices ceased, he 
murmured to his brothers and sisters in the nest — 

“ This would be all very pleasant and nice, if we 
could know anything about the Land we talk 
about.” 

“If we were to know too much, perhaps we 
should never be satisfied here,” laughed the tender 
little one, who had formerly been so much dis- 
tressed about going. 


30 


THE UNKNOWN LAND. 


“But we know nothing ,” rejoined the other 
bird ; “ indeed, how do we know there is such a 
place as the Unknown Land at all?” 

“We feel that there is, at any rate,” answered 
the Sister-bird, “/have heard the call our mother 
tells about, and so must you have done.” 

“You fancy you have heard it, that is to say,” 
cried the Brother; “because she told you. It is 
all fancy, all guesswork ; no knowledge ! I could 
fancy I heard it too, only I will not be so weak and 
silly ; I will neither think about going, nor will I 
go.” 

“ This is not your Rest,” sang the mother, in a 
loud clear voice, outside; and “ This is not your 
Rest,” echoed the others in sweet unison ; and 
u This is not your Rest,” sounded in the depths of 
the poor little Sedge Warbler’s own heart. 

“This is not our rest!” repeated the Mother. 
“ The river is rushing forward ; the clouds are 
hurrying onward ; the winds are sweeping past, 
because here is not their Rest. Ask the river, ask 
the clouds, ask the winds where they go to : — 
Another Land ! Ask the great sun, as he descends 
away out of sight, where he goes to : — Another 
Land ! And when the appointed time shall come, 
let us also arise and go hence.” 

“ Oh ! Mother, Mother, would that I could be- 
lieve you! Where is that other Land?” Thus 
cried the distressed doubter in the nest. And then 
he opened his troubled heart, and told what the 
Magpie had said, and the parent birds listened in 
silence, and when he ceased — 


THE UNKNOWN LAND. 31 

“ Listen to me, my son,” exclaimed the Mother, 
“ and I will sing you another song.” 

Whereupon she spoke once more of the land she 
had left before ; but now the burden of her story 
was, that she had left it without knowing why . 
She “ went out not knowing whither,” — in blind 
obedience, faith, and hope. As she traversed the 
wide waste of waters, there was no one to give her 
reasons for her flight, or tell her, “ This and this 
will be your lot.” Could the Magpie have told her, 
had he met her there? But had she been deceived? 
No! The secret voice which had called and led 
her forth, had been one of kindness. When she 
came to the reed-beds she knew all about it. For 
then arose the strong desire to settle. Then she 
and her dear partner lived together. And then 
came the thought that she must build a nest. Ah ! 
had the Magpie seen her then, building a home for 
children yet unborn, how he would have mocked 
at her ! What could she know , he would have 
asked, about the future? Was it not all guess- 
work, fancy, folly? But had she been deceived? 
No! it was that voice of Kindness that had told 
her what to do. For did she not become the happy 
mother of children ? And was she not now able 
to comfort and advise her little ones in their trou- 
bles? For, let the Magpie say what he would, 
was it likely that the voice of Kindness would 
deceive them at last? “No!” cried she; “in 
joyful trust let us*obey the call, though now we 
know not why. When obedienee and faith are 


32 


THE UNKNOWN LAND. 


made perfect, it may be that knowledge and ex- 
planation shall be given.” So ended the Mother’s 
strain, and no sad misgivings ever clouded the 
Sedge Warbler’s home again. 

Several weeks of changing autumn weather fol- 
lowed after this, and the chilly mornings and even- 
ings caused the songs of departure to sound louder 
and more cheerily than ever in the reed-beds. They 
knew, they felt, they had confidence, that there was 
joy for them in the Unknown Land. But one 
dark morning, when all were busy in various direc- 
tions, a sudden loud sound startled the young ones 
from their sports, and in terror and confusion they 
hurried home. The old nest looked looser and 
more untidy than ever that day, for some water had 
oozed in through the half-worn bottom. But they 
huddled together into it, as of old, for safety. 
Soon, however, it was discovered that neither 
Father nor Mother were there ; and after waiting 
in vain some time for their return, the frightened 
young ones flew off again to seek them. 

Oh ! weary, weary search for the missing ones 
we love ! It may be doubted whether the sad 
reality, when they came upon it, exceeded the agony 
of that hour’s suspense. 

It ended, however, at last ! On a patch of long 
rank herbage which covered a mud bank, so wet 
that the cruel sportsman could not follow to secure 
his prey, lay the stricken parent birds. One w T as 
already dead, but the mother sfill lived, and as her 
children’s wail of sorrow sounded in her ear, she 


THE UNKNOWN LAND. 


33 


murmured out a last gentle strain of hope and 
comfort. 

“ Away, away, my darlings, to the Unknown 
Land. The voice that has called to all our race 
before, and never but for kindness, is calling to vou 
now ! Obey ! Go forth in joyful trust ! Quick ! 
Quick ! There’s no time to be lost.” 

“ But my Father — you — oh, my Mother \ ” cried 
the young ones. 

“ Hush, sweet ones, hush ! We cannot be with 
you there. But there may be some other Unknown 
Land which this may lead to;” and the Mother 
laid her head against her wounded side and died. 

Long before the sunbeams could pierce the heavy 
haze of the next autumn morning, the young Sedge 
Warblers rose for the last time over their much 
loved reed-beds, and took flight — “ they knew not 
whither.” 

Dim and undefined hope, perhaps, they had, that 
they might find their parents again in the Unknown 
Land. And if one pang of grief struck them when 
these hopes ended, it was but for a moment, for, 
said the Brother-bird — 

“ There may be some other Unknown Land, 
better even than this, to which they may be gone.” 



D 



KNOWLEDGE NOT THE LIMIT OF 
BELIEF. 

“ Canst thou by searching find out God?” — J ob xi. 7. 

T was but the banging of the door, 
blown to by a current of wind from 
the open window, that made that great 
noise, and shook the room so much ! 

The room was a Naturalist’s library, and it was 
a pity that some folio books of specimens had been 
left so near the edge of the great table, for, w^ien 
the door clapt to, they fell down ; and many plants, 
seaweeds, &c., were scattered on the floor. 

And, “Do we meet once again?” said a Zoo- 
phyte to a Seaweed (a Corallina ) in whose com- 
pany he had been thrown ashore, — “ Do we meet 
once again ? This is a real pleasure. What strange 
adventures we have gone through since the waves 
flung us on the sands together !” 

“ Ay, indeed,” replied the Seaweed, “ and what 
a queer place we have come to at last! Well, 
well — but let me first ask you how you are this 



KNOWLEDGE NOT THE LIMIT uF BELIEF. 35 

morning, after all the washing, and drying, and 
squeezing, and gumming, we have undergone ?” 

“ Oh, pretty well in health, Seaweed, but very, 
very sad. You know there is a great difference 
between you and me. You have little or no cause 
to be sad. You are just the same now that you 
ever were, excepting that you can never grow any 
more. But I! ah, I am only the skeleton of what 
I once was ! All the merry little creatures that 
inhabited me are dead and dried up. They died by 
hundreds at a time soon after I left the sea; and 
even if they had survived longer, the nasty fresh 
water we were soaked in by the horrid being who 
picked us up, would have killed them at once. 
What are you smiling at ?” 

“ I am smiling,” said the Seaweed, " at your 
calling our new master a horrid being, and also at 
your speaking so positively about the little creatures 
that inhabited you.” 

“ And why may I not speak positively of what 
I know so well ? ” asked the other. 

“ Oh, of what you know , Zoophyte, by all 
means ! But I wonder what we do know ! People 
get very obstinate over what they think they know, 
and then, lo and behold ! it turns out to be a mis- 
take.” 

“ What makes you say this?” inquired the Zoo- 
phyte ; and the Seaweed answered, “ I have learnt 
it from a very curious creature I have made acquain- 
tance with here— a Bookworm. He walks through 
all the books in this library just as he pleases, and 


36 


KNOWLEDGE NOT THE 


picks up a quantity of information, and knows a 
great deal. And he’s a mere nothing, lie says, 
compared to the creature who picked us up — the 
‘ horrid being,’ as you call him. Why, my dear 
friend, the Bookworm tells me that he who found 
us is a man, and that a man is the most wonderful 
creature in all the world ; that there is nothing in 
the least like him. And this particular one here is 
a Naturalist; that is, he knows all about living 
creatures, and plants, and stones, and I don’t know 
what besides. Now, wouldn’t you say that it was 
a great honour to belong to him, and to have made 
acquaintance with his friend the Bookworm?” 

“ Of course I should, and do — ” the Zoophyte 
replied. 

“Very well,” continued his companion, “I knew 
you would ; and yet I can tell you that this 
Naturalist and his Bookworm are just instances of 
what I have been saying. They fancy that betwixt 
them they know nearly everything, and get as ob- 
stinate as possible over the most ridiculous mistakes.” 

“ My good friend Seaweed, are you a competent 
judge in such matters as these?” 

“ Oh, am I not !” the Seaweed rejoined. u Why 
now, for instance, what do you think the Bookworm 
and I have been quarrelling about half the morning! 
Actually as to whether I am an animal or a vege- 
table. He declares that I am an animal full of 
little living creatures like yours, and that there is a 
long account of all this written on the page opposite 
the one on which I am gummed ! ” 


LIMIT OF BELIEF. 


37 


u Of all the nonsense I ever listened to ! ” began 
the Zoophyte, angrily, yet amused — but he was in- 
terrupted by the Seaweed — 

“ And as for you — I am almost ashamed to tell 
you — that you and all your family and connections 
were, for generations and generations, considered 
as vegetables. It is only lately that these Naturalists 
found out that you were an animal. May I not 
well say that people get very obstinate about what 
they think they know, and after all it turns out to 
be a mistake ? As for me, I am quite confused 
with these blunders.” 

“ O dear, how disappointed I am ! ” murmured 
the Zoophyte. “ I thought we had really fallen 
into the hands of some very interesting creatures. 
I am very, very sorry ! It seemed so nice that 
there should be wonderful, wise beings, who spend 
their time in finding all about animals, and plants, 
and such things, and keep us all in these beautiful 
books so carefully. I liked it so much ; and now 
I find the wonderfully wise creatures are wonder- 
fully stupid ones instead.” 

“ Very much so,” laughed the Seaweed, “ though 
our learned friend, the Bookworm, would tell you 
quite otherwise ; but he gets quite muddled when 
he talks about them, poor fellow !” 

u It is very easy to ridicule your betters,” said a 
strange voice ; and the Bookworm, who had just 
then eaten his way through the back of Lord 
Bacon’s Advancement of Learning , appeared sitting 
outside, listening to the conversation. “ I shall be 


38 


KNOWLEDGE NOT THE 


sorry that I have told you anything if you make 
such a bad use of the little bit of knowledge you 
have acquired.” 

“ Oh, I beg your pardon, dear friend!” cried 
the Seaweed. “ I meant no harm. You see it is 
quite new to us to learn anything ; and really, if I 
laughed, you must excuse me. I meant no harm — 
only I do happen to know — really for a fact — that 
I never was alive with little creatures like my 
friend the Zoophyte ; and he happens to know — 
really for a fact — that he never was a vegetable ; 
and so you see it made us smile to think of your 
wonderful creature, man, making such wonderfully 
odd mistakes.” 

At this the Bookworm smiled ; but he soon 
shook his head gravely, and said — “ All the mis- 
takes man makes, man can discover and correct— I 
mean, of course, all the mistakes he makes about 
creatures inferior to himself, whom he learns to 
know from his own observation. He may not 
observe quite carefully enough one day, but he may 
put all right when he looks next time. I never 
give up a statement when I know it is true : and so 
I tell you again — laugh as much as you please — 
that, in spite of all his mistakes, man is, without 
exception, the most wonderful and the most clever 
of all the creatures upon earth !” 

u You will be a clever creature yourself if you 
can prove it!” cried both the Zoophyte and Sea- 
weed at once. 

“ The idea of taking me with my hundreds of 


LIMIT OF BELIEF. 39 

living inhabitants for a vegetable!” sneered the 
Zoophyte. 

“ And me with my vegetable inside, covered 
over with lime, for an animal ! ” smiled the Sea- 
weed. 

Bookworm. “ Ah ! have your laugh out, and 
then listen. But, my good friends, if you had 
worked your way through as many wise books as I 
have done, you would laugh less and know more.” 

Zoophyte. “ Nay, don’t be angry, Bookworm.” 

Bookworm. “ Oh, I’m not angry a bit. I know 
too well the cause of all the folly you are talking, 
so I excuse you. And I am now puzzling my head 
to find out how I am to prove what I have said 
about the superiority of man, so as to make you 
understand it.” 

Seaweed. “ Then you admit there is a little diffi- 
culty in proving it? Even you confess it to be 
lather puzzling.” 

Bookworm. “ I do ; but the difficulty does not 
lie where you think it does. I am sorry to say it — 
but the only thing that prevents your understanding 
the superiority of man, is your own immeasurable 
inferiority to him ! However many mistakes he 
may make about you , he can correct them all by a 
little closer or more patient observation. But no 
observation can make you understand what man is. 
You are quite within the grasp of his powers, but 
he is quite beyond the reach of yours.” 

Seaweed. “ You are not over-civil, with all your 
learning, Mr. Bookworm.” 


40 


KNOWLEDGE NOT THE 


Bookworm. “I do not mean to be rude, I assure 
you. You are both of you very beautiful creatures, 
and, I dare say, very useful too. But you should 
not fancy either that you do know everything, or 
that you are able to know everything. And, above 
all, you should not dispute the superiority and 
powers of another creature merely because you can- 
not understand them.” 

Seaweed. “ And am I then to believe all the 
long stories anybody may choose to come and tell 
me about the wonderful powers of other creatures ? 
— and, when I inquire what those wonderful powers 
are, am I to be told that I can’t understand them, 
but am to believe them all the same as if I did?” 

Bookworm. “ Certainly not, unless the wonder- 
ful powers are proved by wonderful results ; but if 
they are, I advise you to believe in them, whether 
you understand them or not.” 

Seaweed. “ I should like to know how I am to 
believe what I don’t understand.” 

Bookworm. “ Very well, then, don’t ! and re- 
main an ignorant fool all your life. Of course, you 
can’t really understand anything but what is within 
the narrow limits of your own powers ; so, if you 
choose to make those powers the limits of your 
belief, I wish you joy, for you certainly won’t be 
overburdened with knowledge.” 

Seaweed. “ I will retort upon you that it is very 
easy to be contemptuous to your inferiors, Mr. 
Bookworm. You would do much better to try and 
explain to me those wonderful powers themselves. 


LIMIT OF BELIEF 41 

and so remove all the difficulties that stand in the 
way of my belief.” 

Bookworm. “ If I were to try ever so much, I 
should not succeed. You can’t understand even 
my superiority.” 

Seaweed. “ Oh, Bookworm ! now you are grow- 
ing conceited.” 

Bookworm. “ Indeed I am not ; but you shall 
judge for yourself. I can do many things you 
can’t do ; among others, I can see.” 

Seaweed. “ What is that?” 

Bookworm. “ There, now ! I knew I should 
puzzle you directly ! Why, seeing is something 
that I do with a very curious machine in my head, 
called an eye. But as you have not got an eye, 
and therefore cannot see, how am I to make you 
understand what seeing is?” 

Seaweed. “ Why, you can tell us, to be sure.” 

Bookworm. “ Tell you what ? I can tell you I 
see. I can say, Now I see, now I see , as I walk 
over you, and see the little bits of you that fall 
under my small eye. Indeed, I can also tell you 
wkat I see ; but how will that teach you what 
seeing is ? You have got no eye, and therefore 
you can’t see, and therefore also you can never 
know what seeing is.” 

Zoophyte. “ Then why need we believe there is 
suoh a thing as seeing?” 

Bookworm. “Oh, pray, don’t believe it ! I don’t 
know why you should, I am sure ! There’s no 
harm at all in being ignorant and narrow-minded. 


42 


KNOWLEDGE NOT THE 


I am sure I had much rather you took no further 
trouble in the matter ; for you are, both of you, 
very testy and tiresome. It is from nothing bui 
pride and vanity, too, after all. You want to be in 
a higher place in creation than you are put in, and 
no good ever comes of that. If you would be con- 
tent to learn wonderful things in the only way that 
is open to you, I should have a great deal of 
pleasure in telling you more.” 

Zoophyte. “ And pray what way is that?” 

Bookworm. “Why, from the effects produced 
by them. As I said before, even where you cannot 
understand the wonderful powers themselves, you 
may have the grace to believe in their existence, 
from their wonderful results.” 

Seaweed. “And the results of what you call 
* seeing ’ are — ” 

“In man,” interrupted the Bookworm, “that he 
gets to know everything about you, and all the 
creatures, and plants, and stones he looks at; so 
that he knows your shape, and growth, and colour, 
and all about the cells of the little creatures that 
live in you — how many feelers these have, what 
they live upon, how they catch their food, how the 
eggs come out of the egg-cells, where you live, 
where you are to be found, what other Zoophytes 
are related to you, i. e., which are most like you — 
in short, the most minute particulars ; — so that he 
puts you into his collections, not among strange 
creatures, but near to those you are most nearly 
connected with ; and he describes you, and makes 


LIMIT OF BELIEF. 


43 


pictures of you, and gives you a name so that you 
are known for the same creature, wherever you are 
found all over the w r orld. And now, I’m quite 
out of breath with telling you all these wonderful 
results of seeing.” 

“ But he once took me for a vegetable,” mused 
the Zoophyte. 

“ Yes; as I said before, he had not observed quite 
close enough, nor had he then invented a curious 
instrument which enables his great big eye to see 
such little fellows as your inhabitants are. But 
when he made that instrument, and looked very 
carefully, he saw all about you.” 

“Ay, but he still calls me an animal,” observed 
the Seaweed. 

“ I know he does, but I am certain he will not 
do so long ! If you are a vegetable, I will warrant 
him to find it out when he examines you a little 
more.” 

“ You expect us to believe strange things, Book- 
worm,” observed the Zoophyte. 

“ To be sure, because there is no end of strange 
things for you to believe ! And what you can’t 
find out for yourself, you must take upon trust 
from your betters,” laughed the Bookworm. “ It’s 
the only plan. Observation and Revelation are 
the sole means of acquiring knowledge. 

Just at that moment the door opened, and two 
gentlemen entered the room. 

“Ah, my new specimens on the floor !” observed 
the Naturalist; “but never mind,” added he, as he 


44 


KNOWLEDGE NOT THE 


picked them up, “here is the very one we wanted; 
it will serve admirably for our purpose. I shall 
only sacrifice a small branch of it, though.” 

And the Naturalist cut off a little piece of the 
Seaweed and laid it in a saucer, and poured upon it 
some liquid from a bottle, and an effervescence 
began to take place forthwith, and the Seaweed’s 
limy coat began to give way ; and the two gentle- 
men sat watching the result. 

“ Now,” whispered the Bookworm to the Zoo- 
phyte, “ those two men are looking closely at your 
Seaweed friend, and trying what they call experi- 
ments, that they may find out what he is ; and if 
they do not succeed, I will give up all my argu- 
ments in despair.” 

But they did succeed ! 

The gentlemen watched on till all the lime was 
dissolved, and there was nothing left in the saucer 
but a delicate red branch with little round things 
upon it, that looked like tiny apples. 

“ This is the fruit decidedly,” remarked the 
Naturalist; “ and now we will proceed to examine 
it through the microscope.” 

And they did so. 

And an hour or more passed, and a sort of 
sleepy forgetfulness came over the Bookworm and 
his two friends ; for they had waited till they were 
tired for further remarks from the Naturalist. 
And, therefore, it was with a start they were 
aroused at last by hearing him exclaim, “ It is 
impossible to entertain the slightest doubt. If I 


LIMIT OF BELIEF. 


45 


ever had any, I have none now ; and the Coral- 
linas must be removed back once more to their 
position among vegetables !” 

The Naturalist laughed as he loosened the gum 
from the specimen, which he placed on a fresh 
paper, and classed among Red Seaweeds. And 
soon after, the two gentlemen left the room once 
more. 

“ So he has really found our friend out!” cried 
the Zoophyte ; “ and he was right about the fruit 
too ! Oh, Bookworm, Bookworm, would that I 
could know what seeing is !” 

“ Oh, Zoophyte, Zoophyte ! I wish you would 
not waste your time in struggling after the un- 
attainable ! You know what feeling is. Well, I 
would tell you that seeing is something of the same 
sort as feeling, only that it is quite different. Will 
that do?” 

“ It sounds like nonsense.” 

“ It is nonsense. There can be no answer but 
nonsense, if you want to understand ‘ really for a 
fact/ as you call it, powers that are above you. 
Explain to the rock on which you grow, what 
feeling is ! ” 

“ How could I?” said the Zoophyte; “it has 
no sensation.” 

“No more than you have sight,” rejoined the 
Bookworm. 

“That is true indeed,” cried the Zoophyte. 
“ Bookworm ! I am satisfied — humbled, I must 
confess, but satisfied. And now I will rejoice in 


46 KNOWLEDGE NOT THE LIMIT OF BELIEF. 

our position here, gkry in our new master, and 
admire his wonderful powers, even while I cannot 
understand them.” 

“ I am proud of my disciple,” returned the 
Bookworm kindly. 

“ I also am one of them,” murmured the Sea- 
weed ; “ but tell me now, are there any other 
strange powers in man?” 

il Several,” was the Bookworm’s answer ; “ but 
to be really known they must be possessed. A 
lower power cannot compass the full understand- 
ing of a higher. But to limit one’s belief to the 
bounds of one’s own small powers, would be to tie 
oneself down to the foot of a tree, and deny the 
existence of its upper branches.” 

“ There are no powers beyond those that man 
possesses, I suppose,” mused the Zoophyte. 

“I am far from saying that,” replied the Book- 
worm ; u on the contrary — ” 

But what he would have said further no one 
knows, for once more the door opened, and the 
Naturalist, who now returned alone, spent his 
evening in putting by the specimens in their 
separate volumes on the shelves. And it was a 
long, long time before the Bookworm saw them 
again ; for the volumes in which they were kept 
were bound in Russia leather, to the smell of which 
he had a particular dislike, so that he could never 
make his way to them for a friendly chat, and they 
could only meet henceforth by accident. 


TRAINING AND RESTRAINING. 


M Train up a child in the way he should go.” — Prov. xxii. 6. 


HAT a fuss is made about you, my 
dear little friends ! ” murmured the 
Wind, one day, to the flowers in a 
pretty villa garden. “ I am really 
quite surprised at your submitting so patiently and 
meekly to all the troublesome things that are done 
to you ! I have been watching your friend the 
Gardener for some time to-day ; and now that he is 
gone at last, I am quite curious to hear what you 
think and feel about your unnatural bringing up.” 

“ Is it unnatural?” inquired a beautiful Convol- 
vulus major , from the top of a tapering fir-pole, up 
which she had crept, and from which her velvet 
flowers hung suspended like purple gems. 

“ I smile at your question,” was the answer of 
the Wind. “ You surely cannot suppose that in a 
natural state you would be forced to climb regularly 
up one tall bare stick such as I see you upon now. 
Oh dear, no ! Your cousin, the wild convolvulus, 
whom I left in the fields this morning, does no such 



48 TRAINING AND RESTRAINING. 

thing, I assure you. She runs along and climbs 
about, just as the whim takes her. Sometimes she 
takes a turn upon the ground ; sometimes she enters 
a hedge, and plays at bo-peep with the birds in the 
thorn and nut-trees — twisting here, curling there, 
and at last, perhaps, coming out at the top, and 
overhanging the hedge with a canopy of green 
leaves and pretty white flowers. A very different 
sort of life from yours, with a Gardener always 
after you, trimming you in one place, fastening up 
a stray tendril in another, and fidgeting you all 
along — a sort of perpetual i mustn’t go here ’ — 
‘ mustn’t go there.’ Poor thing ! I quite feel for 
you! Still I must say you make me smile; for 
you look so proud and self-conscious of beauty ail 
the time, that one would think you did not know 
in what a ridiculous and dependent position you 
are placed.” 

Now the Convolvulus was quite abashed by the 
words of the Wind, for she was conscious of feeling 
very conceited that morning, in consequence of 
having heard the Gardener say something very flat- 
tering about her beauty ; so she hung down her 
rich bell-flowers rather lower than usual, and made 
no reply. 

But the Carnation put in her word : “ What you 
say about the Convolvulus may be true enough, 
but it cannot apply to me. I am not aware that I 
have any poor relations in this country, and I my- 
self certainly require all the care that is bestow’ed 
upon me. This climate is both too cold and too 


TRAINING AND RESTRAINING. 49 

damp for me. My young plants require heat, or 
they would not live ; and the pots we are kept in 
protect us from those cruel wireworms, who delight 
to destroy our roots.” 

“Oh!” cried the Wind, “our friend the Car- 
nation is quite profound and learned in her remarks, 
and I admit the justice of all she says about damp 
and cold, and wire-worms ; but,” — and here the 
Wind gave a low-toned whistle, as he took a turn 
round the flower-bed — “ but what I maintain, my 
dear, is, that when you are once strong enough and 
old enough to be placed in the soil, those Gardeners 
ought to let you grow and flourish as Nature prompts, 
and as you would do were you left alone. But no ! 
forsooth, they must always be clipping, and trim- 
ming, and twisting up every leaf that strays aside out 
of the trim pattern they have chosen for you to grow 
in. Why not allow your silver tufts to luxuriate in 
a natural manner? Why must every single flower 
be tied up by its delicate neck to a stick, the mo- 
ment it begins to open ? Really, with your natural 
grace and beauty, I think you might be trusted to 
yourself a little more !” 

And the Carnation began to think so too ; and 
her colour turned deeper as a feeling of indignation 
arose within her at the childish treatment to which 
she had been subjected. “ With my natural grace 
and beauty,” repeated she to herself, “ they might 
certainly trust me to myself a little more !” 

Still the Rose-tree stood out that there must be 
some great advantages in a Gardener’s care; for 

E 


50 TRAINING- AND RESTRAINING. 

she could not pretend to be ignorant of her own 
superiority to all her wild relations in the woods. 
What a difference in size, in colour, and in frag- 
rance ! 

Then the Wind assured the Rose he never meant 
to dispute the advantage of her living in a rich- 
soiled garden ; only there was a natural way of 
growing, even in a garden ; and he thought it a 
great shame for the gardeners to force the Rose-tree 
into an ww natural way, curtailing all the energies of. 
her nature. What could be more outrageous, for 
example, than to sec one rose growing in the shape 
of a bush on the top of the stem of another ? “ Think 
of all the pruning necessary,” cried he, u to keep 
the poor thing in the round shape so much ad- 
mired. And what is the matter with the beautiful 
straggling branches, that they are to be cut off as 
fast as they appear ? Why not allow the healthy 
Rose-tree its free and glorious growth? Why 
thwart its graceful droopings or its high aspirings ? 
Can it be too large or too luxuriant? Can its 
flowers be too numerous? Oh, Rose-tree, you 
know your own surpassing merits too well to make 
you think this possible !” 

And so she did, and a new light seemed to dawn 
upon her as she recollected the spring and autumnal 
prunii.gs she regularly underwent, and the quan- 
tities of little branches that were yearly cut from 
her sides, and carried away in a wheelbarrow. “It 
is a cruel and a monstrous system, I fear,” said 
she. 


TRAINING AND RESTRAINING. 5* 

Then the Wind took another frolic round the 
garden, and made up to the large white Lily, into 
whose refined ear he whispered a doubt as to the 
necessity or advantage of her thick powerful stem 
being propped up against a stupid, ugly stick ! He 
really grieved to see it ! Did that lovely creature 
suppose that Nature, who had done so much for 
her that the fame of her beauty extended throughout 
the w r orld, had yet left her so weak and feeble that 
she could not support herself in the position most 
calculated to give her ease and pleasure? “ Always 
this tying up and restraint !” pursued the Wind, 
with an angry puff. “ Perhaps I am prejudiced ; 
but as to be deprived of freedom would be to me 
absolute death, so my soul revolts from every shape 
and phase of slavery ! ” 

“Not more than mine does!” cried the proud 
white Lily, leaning as heavily as she could against 
the strip of matting that tied her to her stick. But 
it was of no use — she could not get free; and the 
Wind only shook his sides and laughed spitefully 
as he left her, and then rambled away to talk the 
same shallow philosophy to the Honeysuckle that 
was trained up against a wall. Indeed, not a 
flower escaped his mischievous suggestions. He 
murmured among them all — laughed the trim cut 
Box-edges to scorn — maliciously hoped the Sweet- 
peas enjoyed growing in a circle, and running up a 
quantity of crooked sticks — and told the flowers, 
generally, that lie should report their unheard-of 
submission and meek obedience wherever he went. 


52 TRAINING AND RESTRAINING. 

Then the white Lily called out to him in great 
wrath, and told him he mistook their characters al- 
together. They only submitted to these degrading 
restraints because they could not help themselves; 
but if he would lend them his powerful aid, they 
might free themselves from at least a part of the 
unnatural bonds which enthralled them. 

To which the wicked Wind, seeing that his 
temptations had succeeded, replied, in great glee, 
that he would do his best; and so he went away, 
chuckling at the discontent he had caused. 

All that night the pretty silly flowers bewailed 
their slavish condition, and longed for release and 
freedom : and at last they began to be afraid that 
the Wind had only been jesting with them, and 
that he would never come to help them, as he had 
promised. However, they were mistaken ; for, at 
the edge of the dawn, there began to be a sighing 
and a moaning in the distant woods, and by the 
time the sun was up, the clouds were driving fast 
along the sky, and the trees were bending about in 
all directions ; for the Wind had returned, — only 
now he had come in his roughest and wildest mood, 
— knocking over everything before him. “ Now is 
your time, pretty flowers!” shouted he, as he 
approached the garden ; and “ Now is our time !” 
echoed the flowers tremulously, as, with a sort of 
fearful pleasure, they awaited his approach. 

He managed the affair very cleverly, it must be * 
confessed. Making a sort of eddying circuit round 
the garden, he knocked over the Convolvulus-pole, 


TRAINING AND RESTRAINING. 53 

tore the strips of bast from the stick that held up 
the white Lily, loosed all the Carnation flowers from 
their fastenings, broke the Rose-tree down, and 
levelled the Sweet-peas to the ground. In short, 
in one half-hour he desolated the pretty garden ; 
and when his work was accomplished, he flew off 
to rave about his deed of destruction in other 
countries. 

Meanwhile, how fared it with the flowers? The 
Wind w r as scarcely gone before a sudden and heavy 
rain followed, so that all was confusion for some 
time. But towards the evening the weather cleared 
up, and our friends began to look around them. 
The white Lily still stood somewhat upright, though 
no friendly pole supported her juicy stem ; but, 
alas ! it was only by a painful effort she could hold 
herself in that position. The Wind and the weight 
of rain had bent her forward once, beyond her 
strength, and there was a slight crack in one part 
of the stalk, which told that she must soon double 
over and trail upon the ground. The Convolvulus 
fared still worse. The garden beds sloped towards 
the south ; and when our friend was laid on the 
earth — her pole having fallen — her lovely flowers 
were choked up by the wet soil w hich drained to- 
wards her. She felt the muddy weight as it 
soaked into her beautiful velvet bells, and could 
have cried for grief ; she could never free herself 
from this nuisance. O that she were once more 
climbing up the friendly fir-pole ! The Honey- 
suckle escaped no better; and the Carnation was 


54 TRAINING AND RESTRAINING. 

ready to die of vexation, at finding that her coveted 
freedom had levelled her to the dirt. 

Before the day closed, the Gardener came whist- 
ling from his farm work, to look over his pretty 
charges. He expected to see a few drooping 
flowers, and to find that one or two fastenings had 
given way. But for the sight that awaited him 
he was not prepared at all. Struck dumb with 
astonishment, he never spoke at first, but kept 
lifting up the heads of the trailing, dirtied flowers 
in succession. Then at last he broke out in words 
of absolute sorrow: — “And to think of my mistress 
and the young lady coming home so soon, and 
that nothing can be done to these poor things for 
a fortnight, because of the corn harvest ! It’s all 
over with them, I fear;” and the Gardener went 
his way. 

Alas ! what he said was true ; and before many 
days had passed, the shattered Carnations were 
rotted with lying in the wet and dirt on the 
ground. The white Lily was languishing dis- 
coloured on its broken stalk ; the Convolvulus’ 
flowers could no longer be recognized, they were 
so coated over with mud stains ; the Honeysuckle 
was trailing along among battered Sweet-peas, who 
never could succeed in shaking the soil from their 
fragrant heads ; and though the Rose-tree had sent 
out a few straggling branches, she soon discovered 
that they were far too weak to bear flowers — nay, 
almost to support themselves — so that they added 
neither to her beauty nor her comfort. Weeds 


TRAINING AND RESTRAINING. 55 

meanwhile sprang; up, and a dreary confusion 
reigned in the once orderly and brilliant little 
garden. 

At length, one day before the fortnight was over, 
the housedog was heard to bark his noisy welcome, 
and servants bustled to and fro. The mistress had 
returned ; and the young lady was with her, ana 
hurried at once to her favourite garden. She came 
bounding towards the well-known spot with a song 
of joyous delight; but, on reaching it, suddenly 
stopped short, and in a minute after burst into a 
flood of tears ! Presently, with sorrowing steps, 
she bent her way round the flower-beds, weeping 
afresh at every one she looked at; and then she sat 
down upon the lawn, and hid her face in her hands. 
In this position she remained, until a gentle hand 
was laid upon her shoulder. 

“ This is a sad sight, indeed, my darling,” said 
her mother’s voice. 

“ I am not thinking about the garden, mamma,” 
replied the young girl, without lifting up her face; 
“ we can plant new flowers, and tie up even some 
of these afresh. I am thinking that now, at last, 
I understand what you say about the necessity of 
training, and restraint, and culture, for us as well 
as for flowers.” 

“ In a fallen world ;” interposed her mother. 

“Yes, — because it is fallen,” answered the 
daughter. “ The wind has torn away these poor 
things from their fastenings, and they are growing 
wild whichever way they please ; and I might per- 


56 


TRAINING AND RESTRAINING. 


haps once have argued, that if it were their natural 
way of growing it must therefore be the best. But 
I cannot say so, now I see the result. They are 
doing whatever they like, .unrestrained ; and the 
end is, — my beautiful garden is turned into a 
WILDERNESS.” 







THE LIGHT OF TRUTH. 


“ We know that all things work together for good.” 

Rom. viii. 28. 

ETESTABLE phantom !” cried the 
traveller, as his horse sank with him 
into the morass ; “ to what a miserable 
end have you lured me by your trea- 
cherous light !” 

“ The same old story for ever!” muttered the 
Will-o’-the-Wisp in reply. “Always throwing 
blame on others for troubles you have brought 
upon yourself. What more could have been done for 
you, unhappy creature, than I have done? All the 
weary night through have L danced on the edge of 
this morass, to save you and others from ruin. If 
you have rushed in further and further, like a head- 
strong fool, in spite of my warning light, who is 
to blame but yourself?” 

“ I am an unhappy creature, indeed,” rejoined 
the traveller : “ I took your light for a friendly 
lamp, but have been deceived to my destruction.” 

( * Yet not by me,” cried the Will-o’-the-Wisp, 



£8 


THE LIGHT OF TRUTH. 


anxiously. “ I work out my appointed business 
carefully and ceaselessly. My light is ever a friendly 
lamp to the wise. It misleads none but the head- 
strong and ignorant/’ 

“ Headstrong ! ignorant !” exclaimed the States- 
© © 

man, for such the traveller was. “ How little do 
you know to whom you are speaking 1 Trusted by 
my King — honoured by my country — the leader of 
her councils — ah, my country, my poor country, 
who will take my place and guide you when I am 
gone ?” 

“ A guide who cannot guide himself ! Misjudg- 
ing, misled, and — though wise, perhaps, in the im- 
perfect laws of society — ignorant in the glorious 
laws of Nature and of Truth — who will miss you, 
presumptuous being? You have mistaken the light 
that warned you of danger, for the star that was to 
guide you to safety. Alas for your country, if no 
better leader than you can be found ! ” 

The Statesman never spoke again, and the Will- 
o’-the-Wisp danced back to the edge of the black 
morass ; and as he flickered up and down, he 
mourned his luckless fate — always trying to do 
good — so often vilified and misjudged. “ Yet,” 
said he to himself, as he sent out his beams through 
the cheerless night, u I will not cease to try ; who 
knows but that I may save somebody yet ! But 

what an ignorant world I live in ! ” 

© 

* * * * * 

“ Cruel monster ! ” shrieked the beautiful Girl in 
wild despair, as her feet plunged into the swamp 


THE LIGHT OF TRUTH. 59 

and she struggled in vain to find firmer ground, 
“ you have betrayed me to my death ! ” 

“ Ay, ay, I said so ! It is always some one else 
who is to blame, and never yourself, when pretty 
fools like you deceive themselves. You call me 
‘ monster ’ — why did you follow a 1 monster ’ into 
a swamp?” cried the poor Will-o’-the-Wisp, an- 
grily. 

“ I thought my betrothed had come out to meet 
me. I mistook your hateful light for his. Oh, 
cruel fiend, I know you now ! Must I die so young, 
so fair? Must I be torn from life, and happiness, 
and love ? Ay, dance ! dance on in your savage 

j°y” 

“ Fool as you are, it is no joy to me to see you 
perish,” answered the Will-o’-the-Wisp. “ It is 
my appointed law to warn and save those who will 
be warned. It is my appointed sorrow, I suppose, 
that the recklessness and ignorance of such as you 
persist in disregarding that law, and turning good 
into evil. I shone bright and brighter before you 
as you advanced, entreating you, as it were, to be 
warned. But, in wilfulness, you pursued me to your 
ruin. What crue.1 mother brought you up, and did 
not teach you to distinguish the steady beam that 
guides to happiness, from the wandering brilliancy 
that bodes destruction ! ” 

“ My poor Mother !” wept the Maiden; u what 
words are these you speak of her ? But you, in 
your savage life, know nothing of what she has 
done for me, her only child. Mistress of every 


60 


THE LIGHT OF TRUTH. 


accomplishment that can adorn and delight society, 
my lightest word, my very smile, is a law to the 
world we move in.” 

“ Even so ! Accomplished in fleeting and fan- 
tastic arts that leave no memorial behind them — 
unacquainted with the beauty and purposes of the 
realities around you, which work from age to age 
in silent mercy for gracious ends, and put to shame 
the toil that has no aim or end. Oh, that you had 
but known the law by which I live ! ” 

The Maiden spoke no more, and soon even ceased 
to struggle. The Will-o’-the-Wisp danced back yet 
another time to the edge of the black morass ; “ for,” 
said he, “ I may save somebody yet. But what a 
foolish world I live in !” 

***** 

“ The old Squire should mend these here roads,” 
observed Hobbinoll the farmer to his son Colin, as 
they drove slowly home from market in a crazy old 
cart, which shook about with such jerks, that little 
Colin tried in vain to keep curled up in a corner. 
It was hard to say whether the fault was most in 
the roads, — though they were rather rutty, it must 
be owned, — or in the stumbling old pony who went 
from side to side, or in the not very sober driver, 
who seemed unable at times to distinguish the reins 
apart, so that he gave sudden pulls, first one way 
and then the other. But through all these troubles it 
comforted the Farmer’s heart to lay all the blame 
on the Squire for the bad roads that led across the 
boggy moor. Colin, however, took but little inte- 


THE LIGHT OF TRUTH. 


61 


rest in the matter; but at length, when a more 
violent jerk than usual threw him almost sprawling 
on the bottom of the cart, he jumped up, laid hold 
of the side planks, and began to look around him 
with his half-sleepy eyes, trying to find out where 
they were. At last he said, “ She’s coming, 
father.” 

“Who’s coming?” shouted Hobbinoll. 

“ T’ mother,” answered Colin. 

“ What’s she coming for, I wonder,” said Hob- 
binoll ; “ we’ve enough in the cart without her.” 

“ But you’re going away from her, father,” ex- 
postulated Colin, half-crying. “ I see her with 
the lanthorn, and she’ll light us home. You can’t 
see, father; let me have the reins.” But Hobbi- 
noll refused to give up the reins, though he was not 
very fit to drive. In the struggle, however, he 

caught sight of the light which Colin took for his 
© © © 

mother’s lanthorn. 

“ And is that the fool’s errand you’d be going 
after?” cried he, pointing with his whip to the 
light. “ It’s lucky for you, young one, you have 
not had the driving of us home to-night, though 
you think you can do anything, I know. A pre- 
cious home it would have been at the bottom of the 
sludgy pool yonder, for that’s where you’d have 
got us to at last. Yon light is the Will-o’-the-Wisp, 
that’s always trying to mislead folks. Bad luck 
befall hkn ! I got halfway to him once when I was 
a young’un, but an old neighbour who’d once been 
in himself was going by just then, and called me 


62 


THE LIGHT OF TRUTH. 


back. He’s a villain is that sham-faced Will-o’- 
the-Wisp.” 

With these words the Farmer struck the pony 
so harshly with his heavy whip, twitching the reins 
convulsively at the same time, at the mere memory 
of his adventure in the bog, that little Colin was 
thrown up and down like a ball, and the cart rolled 
forward in and out of the ruts at such a pace, that 
Hobbinoll got home to his wife sooner than she 
ever dared to hope for on market evenings. 

“ They are safe,” observed the Will-o’-the-Wisp, 
as the cart moved on, “ and that is the great point 
gained ! But such wisdom is mere brute experience. 
In their ignorance they would have struck the hand 
that helped them. Nevertheless, I will try again, 
for I may yet save some one else. But what a 
rude and ungrateful world I live in !” 

***** 

“I see a light at last, papa!” shouted a little 
Boy on a Shetland pony, as he rode by his Father’s 
side along the moor. “ I am so glad ! There is 
either a cottage or a friendly man with a lanthorn 
who will help us to find our w r ay. Let me go 
after him ; I can soon overtake him.” And the 
little Boy touched his pony with a whip, and in 
another minute would have been cantering along 
after the light, but that his Father laid a sudden 
and lreavy hand upon the bridle. 

“Not a step further in that direction, at any 
rate, if you please, my darling.” 


THE LIGHT OF TRUTH. 63 

“ Oh, papa!” expostulated the child, pointing 
with his hand to the light. 

And, “ Oh, my son, I see!” cried the Father, 
smiling; u and well is it for you that I not only 
see, but know the meaning of what I see at the 
same time. That light is neither the gleam from a 
cottage, nor yet a friendly man with a lanthorn, as 
you think ; though, for the matter of that, the light 
is friendly enough to those who understand it. It 
shines there to warn us from the dangerous part of 
the bog. Kind old Will-o’-the-Wisp!” pursued 
the Father, raising his voice, as if calling through 
the darkness into the distance — “ Kind old Will-o’- 
the-Wisp, we know what you mean; we will not 
come near your deathly swamps. The old Na- 
turalist knows you well — good-night, and thank 
you for the warning.” So saying, the Naturalist 
turned the reins of his son’s pony the other way, 
and they both trotted along, keeping the beaten 
road as well as they could by the imperfect 
light. 

“ After all, it was more like a lanthorn than those 
pictures of the nasty Will-o’-the-Wisp, papa,” mur- 
mured the little Boy, reluctantly urging his pony 

on. 

“ Our friend is not much indebted to you for the 
pretty name you have called him,” laughed the 
Father. “ You are of the same mind as the poet, 
who, with the licence of his craft, said — 

‘ Yonder phantom only flies 
To lure thee to thy doom.’ ” 


G4 THE LIGHT OF TRUTH. 

u Yes, papa, and so he does,” interposed the 
Boy. 

“ But, indeed, he does no such thing, my dear, 
— on the contrary, he spends all his life in shining 
brightly to warn travellers of the most dangerous 
parts of the swamp.” 

“ But the shining seems as if he was inviting 
them to go after him, papa.” 

“ Only because you choose to think so, my dear, 
and do not inquire. Does the sailor think the 
shining of the lighthouse invites him to approach 
the dangerous rocks on which it is built?” 

“ Oh, no, papa, because he knows it is put there 
on purpose to warn him away.” 

“ He only knows by teaching and inquiry, Ar- 
thur ; and so you also by teaching and inquiry will 
learn to know, that this Will-o’-the-Wisp is made 
to shine for us in swamps and marshes, as a land- 
beacon of danger. The laws of Nature, which are 
the acted will of God, work together in this case, 
as in all others, for a good end. And it is given to 
us as both a privilege and a pleasure to search them 
out, and to avail ourselves of the mercies, whilst we 
admire the wonders of the great Creator. Can you 
think of a better employment?” 

The fire was very bright, and the tea was warm 
and good, that greeted the travellers, Father and 
Son, on their arrival at home that night. Many a 
joke, too, passed with Mamma as to the sort of tea 
they should have tasted, and the kind of bed they 
should have laid down in, had they only gone after 


THE LIGHT OF TRUTH. 65 

the Will-o’-th e-Wisp, as young Arthur had so much 
wished to do. 

And for just a few days after these events — not 
more, for children’s wisdom seldom does> or ought 
to, last much longer — Arthur had every now and 
then a wise and philosophical fit ; and on the prin- 
ciple that, however much appearances might be 
to the contrary, the laws of Nature were always 
working to some good and beneficent end, he sagely 
and gravely reproved his little sister for crying 
when a shower of hailstones fell; “for surely/’ said 
he, “ though we cannot go out to-day, the storm is 
doing good to something or somebody somewhere.” 

It w r as a blessed creed ! though it cost him a 
struggle to adhere to it, when the lightning flashed 
round him, and the thunder roared in the distance, 
and he saw from the windows dark clouds hanging 
over the landscape. When some one said the storm 
had been very grand, he thought — yes, but it was 
grander still to think that all these laws of Nature, 
as they are called, — this acted will of God — was 
for ever working, night and day, in darkness and 
in light, recognized or unheeded, for some wise 
and beneficent end. 

Yes ! when he was older he would try and trace 
out these ends — a better employment could not be 
found. And it may be, that in long after-years, 
when the storms and the clouds that gathered round 
him were harder yet to look through, because they 
were mental troubles — it may be, that then, from* 
amidst the tender recollections of his infancy, the 


F 


60 


THE LIGHT OF TRUTH. 


gleaming of the Will-o’-the-Wisp would suddenly 
rise and shine before him with comfort. For the 
Student of Nature, who had traced so many blessed 
ends out of dark and mysterious beginnings, held 
fast to the humility and faith of childhood ; and 
where his mind was unable to penetrate, his heart 
was contented to believe. 

***** 
Meanwhile the Will-o’-the-Wisp had heard the 
kind good-night that greeted him as the travellers 
passed by on that dark evening. And his light 
shone brighter than ever, as he said, “ I am happy 
now. I have saved the life of one who not only is 
thankful for it, but knows the hand that saved him.” 
With these words he cheerily danced back again to 
his appointed post. 




WAITING. 


“ It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait.” 
Lam. iii. 26. 


T was, doubtless, a very sorry life the 
House Cricket led, before houses were 
built and fires were kindled. There 
was no comfortable kitchen hearth 
then, in the warm nooks and corners of which he 
might sit and sing his cheerful song, coming out 
every now and then to bask himself in the glow of 
the blazing light. On the contrary, he, so fond of 
heat, had no place to shelter in but holes in hollow 
trees, or crevices in rocks and stones, or some 
equally dull and damp abode. Besides which, he 
had to bear the incessant taunts and ridicule of 
creatures who were perfectly comfortable them- 
selves, and so had no fellow-feeling for his want of 
cheerfulness. 

u Why don’t you go and spring about, and sing 
in the fields with your cousin, the Grasshopper?” 



68 


WAITING. 


was the ill-natured question of the Spider, as she 
twisted her web in one of the refuge-holes the 
Cricket had crept into ; “ I am sure your legs are 
long enough, if you would only take the trouble 
to undouble them. It’s nothing but a sulky, dis- 
contented feeling that keeps you and all your 
family moping in these out-of-the way corners, 
when you ought to be using your limbs in jumping 
about and enjoying yourself. And I dare say, 
too, that you could sing a great deal louder if you 
chose.” 

The Cricket thought, perhaps he could, — but he 
must feel very differently to what he did then, 
before it would be possible to try. Something was 
so very very wrong with him, but what that some- 
thing was he did not know. All the other beasts 
and birds and insects seemed easy and happy 
enough. The Spider, for instance, was quite at 
home and gay in the hole he found so dismal. 
And it was not the Spider only who was con- 
tented : the Flies — the Bees — the Ants — the very 
Mole, who sometimes came up from burrowing, 
and told wonderful stories of his underground de- 
lights — the birds with their merry songs — the huge 
w easts, who walked about like giants in the fields 
— all — all were satisfied with their condition, and 
happy in themselves. Every one had the home he 
liked, and no one envied the other. 

But with him it was quite otherwise : he never 
felt at home ! On the contrary, it always seemed 
to him that he was looking out for something that 

O O 


WAITING. 


G9 


was not there — some place that could never be 
found — some state where he could rise out of the 
depression and uneasiness which here seemed to 
clog him down, though he could not understand 
why. Poor fellow ! as things were now, he felt 
for ever driven to hide in holes, although he knew 
that his limbs were built for energy; and few ever 
heard his. voice, though he possessed one fitted for 
something much better than doleful complaints. 

Sometimes a set of House Crickets would meet 
and talk the matter over. They looked at their 
long folded-up legs, and could not but see how 
exactly they were like those of the Grasshopper. 
And yet the idea of following the Grasshopper into 
the cool grass, and jumping about all day, was 
odious to them. Once, indeed, a Cricket of great 
self-denial offered to go into the fields and find one 
of his green cousins, and ask his opinion on the 
subject, and whether he could give any reason why 
the grasshopper life should be so distasteful to such 
near relations. And he actually went; and when 
the Grasshopper could be persuaded to stand quiet 
for a few seconds, and listen, he was so m-uch con- 
cerned for the Crickets (for he had a tender heart, 
from living so much in the grass, and being so 
musical), that he said he would himself visit his 
cousins, and see what could be done for them. 
Perhaps it was some trifling accidental ailment, or 
it might be a chronic affection in the family, owing 
to mismanagement when they were young, but 
which a little judicious treatment would correct. 


WAITING. 


With these views, he started for the hollow tree 
in which the Crickets had taken shelter, and soon 
reached it, for he travelled the whole way in 
bounds. And the last bound took him fairly into 
the midst of the family circle, in which indeed he 
alighted with more vivacity than politeness, for his 
cousins did not like such startling gaiety. How- 
ever, he steadied himself carefully, and then began 
to examine the legs and knees of all the Crickets 
assembled. He drew them out, and looked them 
well over ; for, thought he, “ there is perhaps some 
blunder or flaw in the way the joints are put 
together.” But he could find nothing amiss. 
There sat the Crickets with legs and bodies as 
nicely made as his own, only with no energy for 
exertion. 

What he might have thought, or what he might 
have said, after this puzzling discovery, no one can 
tell ; for at the end of his examination he was seized 
with the fidgets, and, “ Excuse me, my dear friends,” 
cried he, “ I have the cramp in my left leg — I must 
jump !” And jump he did — once, twice, thrice — 
and the last jump carried him out of the tree; and 
either on purpose, or from forgetfulness, he sprang 
singing away, and returned to his cousins the 
Crickets no more. 

Oh, this yearning after some other better state 
that lies unrevealed in the indefinite future — how 
restless and disheartening a sensation ! Oh, this 
witnessing of perfection in all created things 
around, when one’s own fate is the solitary excep- 


WAITING. 


71 

tion to the rule — how painful the contrast ! How 
cruel, how almost overwhelming the struggle 
between the iron chain of reality and the soaring 
wing of aspiration ! 

But, What is the use, my poor good friends,” 
expostulated a plodding old Mole one day, after 
coming out to see how the upper world went on, 
and hearing the Cricket’s complaints— “ what is 
the use of all this groaning and conjecturing? 
You admit that every other creature but yourself 
is perfect in its way, and quite happy. Well, then, 

I will tell you that you ought to be quite sure you 
are perfect in your way too, though you have not 
found it out yet ; and that you will be happy one 
day or other, although it may not be the case just 
now. Do you suppose this fine scheme of things 
we live in, is to be soiled with one speck of dirt, as 
it were for the sake of teasing such a little insig- 
nificant creature as yourself? Don’t think it for a 
moment, for it is not at all likely ! But you must 
not suppose that everything goes right at first even 
with the best of us. I have had some small 
experience, and I know. But everything fits in 
at last. Of that I am quite sure. For instance, 
now, I do not suppose it ever occurred to you to 5 
think what a trial it must be to a young Mole 
when he first begins to burrow in the earth. Do 
you imagine that he knows what he is doing it for, 
or what will be the result? No such thing. It is 
a complete working in the dark, not knowing in 
the least where he is going. Dear me ! if one had 


72 


WAITING. 


once stopped to conjecture and puzzle, what a 
hardship it would have seemed to drive one’s nose 
by the hour together, into unknown ground, for 
some unexplained reason that did not come out for 
some time afterwards, and that one had no certainty 
would ever come out at all ! But everything fits 
in at last. And so it did with us. I remember it 
quite well in my own case. We drove the earth 
away and outwards, till the space so cleared proved 
an absolute palace ! By the bye, I must try and 
get you down into our splendid abode — it will 
cheer you up, and teach you a useful lesson. 
Well, so you see we found out at last what all the 
grubbing had been for ” 

“Ah ! but,” interrupted the Cricket, “you were 
labouring for some purpose all the time, and if I 
had to labour I could hope. The difficulty is, to 
sit moping with nothing to do but wait.” 

“ It is nonsense to talk of nothing to do.” an- 
swered the Mole ; “ every creature has something 
to do. You, for instance, have always to watch 
for the sun. You know you like the beams and 
warmth he sends out better than anything else in 
the world, so you should get into the way of them 
as much as you can. And after the sun has set, you 
must hunt up the snuggest holes you can find, 
and so make the best of things as they are ; and for 
the rest, you must wait. And waiting answers 
sometimes as well as working, I can assure you. 
There was the young Ox in the plains near here. 
As soon as he could run about at all, he began 


WAITING. 


73 


driving his clumsy head against everything he met. 
No one could tell why ; but he fidgeted and butted 
about all day long, and many of his friends and 
acquaintance were very much offended by his man- 
ners. Others laughed. The dogs, indeed, were 
particularly amused, and used to bark at him con- 
stantly — even close to his nose sometimes, as he 
lowered his head after them. Well, at last, out 
came the secret. Two fine horns grew out from 
our friend’s head, and people soon understood the 
meaning of all the butting; and one of the saucy 
curs who was playing the old barking game with 
him one day, got finely tossed for his pains. Every- 
thing fits in at last, my friends ! No cravings are 
given in vain. There is always something in store 
to account for them, you may be quite sure. You 
may have to wait a bit— some of you a shorter, 
some a longer time ; but do wait — and everything 
will fit in and be perfect at last.” 

It was a most fortunate circumstance for the 
Crickets that the Mole happened to give them this 
good advice ; for a malicious Ape had lately been 
suggesting to them, whether, as they were totally 
useless and very unhappy, it would not be a good 
thing for them all, to starve themselves to death, or 
in some other way, to rid the world of their whole 
race. But the Mole’s good sense gave a different 
turn to their ideas ; and hope is so natural and 
pleasant a feeling, that when once they ventured to 
encourage it, it flourished and grew in their hearts 
till it created a sort of happiness itself. In short, 


74 


"WAITING. 


they determined to wait, and meantime to watch 
for the sun, as their friend had advised. 

There are not many records of the early history 
of the House Crickets ; but it is supposed that they 
travelled about a good deal — preferring always 
the hottest countries ; and rumours of a few strag- 
gling families, who had discovered a sort of 
Cricket Elysium at the mouth of volcanoes, were 
afloat at one time. But the truth of the report was 
never ascertained : and as, doubtless, if ever they 
got there, they were sure to be swept away to de- 
struction by the first eruption that took place, it is 
no wonder that the fact has never been thoroughly 
established. 

Meanwhile several generations died off ; and 
things remained much as they were. But the words 
of the Mole were carried down from father to son, 
and became a byeword of comfort among them : — 
“Everything will fit in at last! no cravings are 
given in vain. There is always something in store 
to account for them. Wait — and everything will 
fit in, and be perfect at last.” 

Gleams of hope, indeed, were not wanting to our 
poor little friends, during this time of probation. 
Wherever fires were kindled by human hands, 
whether by wanderers in the depths of forests, oi 
sojourners in tents, a stir of excitement and rap- 
turous expectation was caused among such Crickets 
as were near enough to know and enjoy the circum- 
stance. But, alas ! when the travellers journeyed 
onwards, or the tents were removed elsewhere, the 


WAITING. 75 

disappointment that ensued was bitter in propor 
tion. 

Many an evil hint, too, had they on such occa- 
sions from the mischief-making creatures which are 
to be found in all grades of life, that such, and no 
better, would be their fate for ever. Rays of joy, 
beaming only to be extinguished in cruel mockery 
of their feelings — such was to be their perpetual 
portion ! 

“ But we will not believe it,” cried the Crickets, 
heart-broken as they were. “ Everything will be 
perfect at last,” sang they as loudly as they could. 
“ No cravings are given in vain.” And as they 
always sang this same song, the mischief-makers 
got tired of listening at last, and left them to sing 
and weep alone. Ah ! it required no small strength 
of mind to resist, as they did, such plausible in- 
sinuations, supported' as they were by present ap- 
pearances. 

But, truly, though it tarried, the day of deliver- 
ance and joy did come ! The first fire that ever 
warmed the hearthstone that flagged the grand old 
chimney-arch of ancient times, ended for ever the 
mystery of the House Crickets’ wants and cravings; 
and when it commonly blazed every winter night m 
men’s dwellings, all the doubts and woes of Cricket 
life were over. These seemed to have passed away 
)ike the dreams of a disturbed night, which had 
been succeeded by daylight and reality. And oh, 
what ecstasy of joy the Crickets felt ! How loud 
they shouted, and how high they sprang! “We 


70 


WAITING. 


knew it would be so ! The good old Mole was 
right ! The grumbling beasts were wrong ! Every- 
thing is perfect now, and no one is so happy as 
we are.” 

“ Grandmother, what creature is it that I hear 
singing so loudly in the corner by the fire ? ” in- 
quires the little one of the good old dame who sits 
musing on the oaken settle. 

“ I do not hear it, my child, and I do not know,” 
answers the deaf and blind old crone. “ But if it 
be singing, love, it is happy, and enjoys these 
blessed fires as much as I do. ‘ Let everything 
that hath breath praise the Lord/ ” 

Ah ! it was no wonder that amidst the many 
merry voices that then shouted, and still shout, 
round those warm and friendly fires, no voice is 
louder, no joy more grateful, than that of the patient 
Cricket. He has “ waited” through fear and sha- 
dows — has hoped through darkness and ignorance 
— and his abode now glows with warmth and light. 
And, if he received a lesson of wisdom from a 
creature more humble and seemingly more blind 
than himself, it is at least not the only instance in 
which instruction has been so obtained. 

And now we know the reason why the Crickets 
come by troops into our houses, and live and thrive 
about our cheering fires, and sing so loud and long 
that the housewives sometimes (I grieve to say) 
get weary of the noise, and try to lessen the num- 
ber of their lively visitors. But yet, there is a 
strange old notion of good fortune attending the 


WAITING. 


77 


presence of these little chirping creatures. They 
are welcomed as bringing “ good luck” to the family 
about whose hearth they settle. And so they do ! 
They bring with them a tale of promises made good. 
They sing a song of hope fulfilled ; and though in 
that glad music there be neither speech nor lan- 
guage which we can recognize as such, there is yet 
a voice to be heard among them by all who love to 
listen, with reverent delight, to the sweet harmonies 
and deep analogies of nature. 



4 


A LESSON OF HOPE. 

“ Oh, yet we trust that, somehow, good 
Will be the final goal of ill ! ” 

Tennyson’s “ In Memoriam.” 

OW the rising blast is driving through 
the ancient forest! What a dismal 
roaring there is among the pine-trees ! 
What a sharp clattering among the 
half-dried poplar-leaves ! What a sighing among 
the beeches ! A wild mysterious hour, and full of 
strange fantastic types of mortal life ! — 

It was thus I spoke, when, having wandered out 
one gloomy autumn night to muse on Nature and 
her laws, I found myself contemplating, in the 
deep recesses of a wood, the progress of a violent 
storm. And as I paused, I leant back in sad re- 
flections lost, against an oak, and, looking upwards 
to the sky, tried to gaze into the depths of those 
black vapoury masses that had arisen, one knew 
not how or whence, to darken over the expanse of 
heaven ; when, all at once, there shone down, upon 
me, from an opening in the clouds, the full rays of 
a bright October moon. 



A LESSON OF HOPE. 


79 


The light was sudden, and a sudden revulsion 
took place within my heart. I had been thinking 
that, like the cruel storm, and like the heavy clouds, 
were the troubles and the trials of human existence: 
and now, when that sweet radiance broke upon my 
eyes, I heard a voice exclaim, as if in echo to my 
thoughts — “ It is the moon that shone in Paradise I” 
It was the Bird of Night, quite near me, in the 
hollow of a tree. Looking to see from whence the 
sound had come, I met his large, grave, meditative 
eyes fixed on my moonlit face, and then I heard 
the voice exclaim again — “ The moon that shone in 
Paradise \ ” 

Oh, what a thought to come across the tumult 
of that hour ! The moon that shone in Paradise ! 
— up to whose radiant orb the eyes of countless 
generations have been turned — from the first glance 
of spotless innocence, to the last yearning gaze of 
sorrow-stricken manhood ! And why ? — but that 
in that calm unchanging glory there shines forth a 
promise of eternal, everlasting peace. But now 
another voice was heard, despite the howling of the 
storm. It was a croaking Raven, swinging on a 
branch beside me. He came between me and the 
light, and ever and anon his coal-black wings 
seemed spreading for a flight. 

“ Deluded fool,” he muttered, “ with your end- 
less myths ! This comes of living in the dark all 
day, and spending all your time in guess-work ! 
See ! your precious moon is gone !” 

“Not gone, though hidden,” was the answer. 


80 


A LESSON OF HOPE. 


But I heard no more than this, for here the 
frightful wind grew louder still. He roared in 
fury all around, scattering the last leaves from the 
bending trees, as if he hated the very relics of the 
gentle summer. And many bowed their heads, and 
others moaned in grief. 

“ Hast thou come with mighty news from distant 
lands,” shouted the Pine-tree scornfully, as he 
tossed his branches to the storm, “that thou bringest 
such confusion in thy path ? Ambassador of evil, 
who has sent thee here?” 

“ Cannot yonder moon teach thee milder 
thoughts?” cried the Elm-tree, as he stood ma- 
jestic in his sorrow and despair. 

“Our hour is come,” exclaimed the softer Beech. 

“ My leaves lie scattered all around. Our life is 
closing fast. Naked and forlorn w r e stand amid the 
ruins of the past.” 

“ What mockery of existence,” stormed the black- 
leaved Poplar in his wrath, “to be placed here, 
and clothed in such sweet beauty, nurtured by 
gentle dews and tender sunshine, and then be left 
at last the victims of reckless fury, with all our 
glories torn by force away ! Would I had never 
risen from the ground ! ” 

“Oh, my aspiring friend,” the ill-mouthed Raven 
cried, “ the few months’ splendour does not satisfy 
your heart! You aim too high, methinks. Well, 
well ! aspiring thoughts are very fine ; but were I 
you, I would accommodate myself to facts. A 
short spring, a shorter summer, and then to perish. 


A LESSON OF HOPE. 


81 


Ha! here you are again, my ancient worthy 
friend!” 

And then another gust broke in with savage fury 
on the forest, and many a stalwart branch crashed 
down upon the ground. The wailings of afflicted 
nature rose amidst the storm. 

“ Is there no refuge from this end?” inquired 
the Oak. “ Why have I lived at all ?” 

“ Because destruction is the law of life,” the 
Raven uttered, with his fiercest croak. “ Where 
would destruction be, were there no life to be de- 
stroyed? It is a glorious law.” 

“No law, but only an exception,” cried the Bird 
of Night. 

And as he spoke there streamed once more from 
out the clouds that type of peace that passeth not 
away — the moon that shone in Paradise. Oh, what 
a * silver mantle she let fall upon the disrobed 
branches of those trees ! Wet as they were with 
rain-drops, and waving in the gale, it seemed as if 
they shone in robes of starlight glory. What 
gracious promises seemed streaming down with that 
sweet light ! 

“ Lift up your heads, ye forest trees, once more ;” 
so sang the mild-eyed Bird of Night. “ Fury is 
short-lived — love alone enduring. All that destroys 
is transitory, but order is everlasting. The un- 
bridled powers of cruelty may rage — it is but for a 
time ! And ye may darken over the blue heavens, 
ye vapoury masses in the sky. It matters not ! 
Beyond the howling of that wrath, beyond the 
G 


82 


A LESSON OF HOPE. 


blackness of those clouds, there shines, unaltered 
and serene, the moon that shone in Paradise.” 

“Your myth again, detested Bird of Night! 
Here to the rescue, ancient friend !” 

And louder then than ever came that cruel, cruel 
wind. 

“ It matters not,” once more the Owl exclaimed. 
“ The stormy winds must cease, the clouds must 
pass away, and yonder sails the light that tells of 
harmony restored.” 

“ Infatuated fool, to live on hope, with death 
around you and before you!” groaned the Raven 
- — and then a crash like thunder rent the air. A 
branch of the huge Oak had fallen to the ground. 
I started at the shock. 

“ Will the day ever come,” I cried aloud, as if 
addressing some mysterious friend, “ will the day 
ever come when storms and woe shall cease? 
Order and peace seem meant, but death and ruin 
come to pass.” 

“ Oh, miserable doubter, do you ask? Must 
the brute beasts and mute creation rise to give an 
answer to your fears? Look in the heaven above, 
and in the earth below, and in the water deep 
beneath the earth. One only law is given — the 
law of order, harmony, and joy.” 

“ Alas, how often broken !” I exclaimed. 

“ Ay, but disturbance is no law, and therefore 
cannot last. Disorder, death, destruction : — by their 
own nature-they are transitory — rebellious powers 
that struggle for a time, and frustrate here and 


A LESSON OF HOPE. 


83 

there the gracious purposes ordained. But they 
exist not of themselves; have neither law nor being 
in themselves ; exist but as disturbers of a scheme 
whose deep foundations cannot be overthrown. 
Life, order, harmony, and peace ; means duly fit- 
ting ends ; the object, universal joy. This is the 
law. Believe in it, and live ! ” 

And as the voice grew silent, from the sky beamed 
over all the scene the placid moon once more. The 
wind had lulled or passed away to other regions of 
the earth, and over all the forest streamed the bril- 
liant light. Once more the lit-up trees shone 
spangled o’er with rays; and happy murmurs 
broke upon my ear, instead of loud complaints. 

a We have been wild and foolish, gracious 
moon!” exclaimed the tender Beech. “ We 
doubted all the promises and hopes you shed so 
freely down. In pity to the terrors of the night, 
forgive us once again !” 

“ You have said right, my sister,” said the Oak. 
“ That heavenly power, whom neither winds nor 
storms can reach, will view with tenderness our 
troubled lot, who live amid the tempests of the 
earth. She will forgive, she hath forgiven us all. 
Hath she not clothed us now with robes more bril- 
liant than the summer ones we love?” 

“ The robes of hope and promise,” wept the 
Poplar, as he spoke, for all his branches trembled 
with delight, and stars seemed dropping all around. 

u I mourn my dark despair,” bewailed the Elm. 
“ I should have called the past to memory ! We 


84 A LESSON OF HOPE. 

never are deserted in our need. The winter tem- 
pests rage, and terrible they are ; but always the 
bright moon from time to time returns, to shed 
down rays of hope and promises of glory on our 
heads 5 and still we doubt and fear, and still the 
patient moon repeats her tale. And then the spring 
and summer time return, and life, and joy, and all 
our beauteous robes. Oh, what weak tremblers we 
must be ! ” 

And so, through all the rest of that strange 
night, murmurs of comfort sounded through the 
wood, and I returned at last to the poor lonely 
cottage that I called my home, and w r ept mixed 
tears of sorrow and of joy. Father and mother 
lost, swept suddenly away, and I, with straitened 
means, left alorte to struggle through the world ! 
Did I not stand before my desolate hearth, like one 
awakened from a dream, a vision — (surely such it 
was !) — exclaiming in despair, as did the weeping 
Beech, “ Naked and forlorn I stand amid the ruins 
of the past.” But through the casement glided in 
on me, me also, as I stood, the blessed rays of that 
eternal moon — the moon that shone in Paradise — 
the moon that promises a Paradise restored. 

And ever and anon, throughout the struggle of 
my life, I would return for wisdom and for hope to 
the old forest where I dreamt the dream. As time 
passed on, and winter snows came down, a cold 
unmeaning sleep seemed to bind up the trees — but 
still, at her appointed time, the moon came out, 
and lit up even snow with robes of light and hone. 


A LESSON OF HOPE. 


85 


And then the spring-time burst the cruel bonds 
that held all nature in a stagnant state. Verdure 
and beauty came again ; and, as I listened to the 
gales that breathed soft music through the trees, I 
thought, “ If I could dream again, I should hear 
songs of exquisite delight.” But that was not to 
be. Still, I could revel in the comfort of the sight, 
and watch the moonbeams glittering in triumphant 
joy through the now verdant bowers of those woods, 
playing in happy sport amid the shadows of the 
leaves. 

And to me also came a spring ! From me, too, 
passed away the winter and its chill ! And now I 
take the children of my love, and the sweet mother 
who has borne them, to those woods; and ever and 
anon we tell long tales of Nature and her ways, 
and how the poor trees moan, when storms and 
tempests come ; and how the wise Owl talks to 
heedless ears his deep philosophy of laws of order 
that must one day certainly prevail, and how the 
patient moon is never weary of her task of shedding 
rays of hope and promise on the world ; and even 
while we speak, the children clap their hands for 
joy, and say they never will despair for anything 
that comes, for, lo ! above their heads there sud 
denly shines out — the moon that shone in 

PARADISE ! 



THE CIRCLE OF BLESSING. 

“ Freely ye have received, freely give*” — M atthew x. 8. 

PASSENGER-SHIP was passing 
through the region of equatorial calms. 
For days she had lain under an at- 
mosphere of oppressive vapour. The 
sea wore a leaden inky hue, and at two or three 
miles distance from the vessel, air and ocean seemed 
to melt into each other. A sort of hot steaminess 
prevailed, which soaked through clothes, sails, and 
every article on board, and produced the most 
wretched languor and depression in every one sub- 
ject to its influence. 

People bore it according to their age, experience, 
and habits of self-control. The old sailors, who 
knew what they had, at times, to expect in those 
latitudes, — either from burning heat, suffocating 
mists, or drenching rains, contented themselves 
with wringing out their clothes, and enduring 
patiently what could not be avoided or altered. 



THE CIRCLE OF BLESSING. 87 

Several of the passengers, new to the trial, made 
the nearly vain experiment of plunging into sea- 
water for refreshment ; but even sea-water seemed 
to have lost its magically tonic power here, where 
it was most needed, under the burning ardours of 
the Line. 

Others, irritated by their sensations, irritated 
themselves yet more by vehement expressions of 
annoyance and disgust. They railed against their 
ill-luck, in having left home so as to encounter such 
detestable weather in their voyage ; abused them- 
selves as fools for having subjected themselves to 
such a risk, and looked up with faces clouded over 
with wrath and reproof at those “ intolerable and 
accursed mists which hung, truth to say, above 
and around the vessel on every side with a thick- 
ness through which no eye could pierce. 

A young man had but just uttered that ill-con- 
ditioned phrase, when a passenger of somewhat ad- 
vanced age, and a demeanour calmed to serenity by 
knowledge and reflection, came up to him, and, 
although he was a stranger, spoke. “ Young man,” 
said he, “ cease to dishonour God by such almost 
blasphemous complaints. Look up, rather, at those 
mists, and bless Him that they are there. You are 
indebted to them for the very bread which has sup- 
ported your life up to this hour of your ignorant 
ingratitude.” 

And the man, advanced in years and wusdom, 
passed forward along the deck, and left the youth 
speechless among his astonished companions. 


88 THE CIRCLE OF BLESSING. 

No explanation was given, and not another word 
of outward murmuring was heard. The ship went 
on her way; but whether that youth, after they 
emerged from the heavy oppression of the tropical 
calms, ever sought for the solution of the old man’s 
statement, remains unknown. 

***** 

“ Come back to me, my children, let us not part;” 
murmured the Sea to the Vapours, which rose from 
its surface, drawn upwards by the heat of the 
tropical sun. “ Return to my bosom, and con- 
tribute your share to the preservation of my great- 
ness and strength.” 

“ There is no lasting greatness, but in distributed 
good,” replied the Vapours; “ behold we carry 
your cooling influence to the heated air around. 
Let us alone, oh Sea ! The work is good.” 

“But carried on at my expense,” murmured the 
Sea. “ Is the air your parent, and not I, that you 
are so careful of its interests and so neglectful of 
mine? Why are you thus ungrateful to me, from 
whom your very existence springs? Oh, foolish 
children ! by diminishing my power you are sap- 
ping the foundations of your own life. Your very 
being depends on mine.” 

“ Small and great, great and small, we all depend 
on each other,” sang the Vapours, as they hovered 
in the air. “ Mighty Ocean, give us of your 
abundance for those that need. It is but little that 
we ask.” 


THE CIRCLE OF BLESSING. 89 

“ Divided interests are the ruin of fool3,” mut- 
tered the angry Sea. 

“ But extended ones the glory of the wise,” 
replied the Vapours, a3 they still continued to rise. 
“ See, now, have we not done ourselves what we 
would have you also do ? Behold, we have left our 
salts in your bosom for those that need them.” 

“ And I have cast them as a useless burden to 
my lowest depths,” exclaimed the Sea, indignantly. 
“Have I not enough, already ? Superfluous boun 
ties deserve but little thanks, methinks.” 

“ Yet in those depths, perchance they may be as 
welcome as we to the air above,” persisted the 
Vapours. “ It is ever thus : and all will be made 
good at last. Small and great, great and small, we 
are dependent on each other evermore.” 

“ Begone, then,” moaned the Sea. “ You, who 
are willing to sacrifice a certain good for an un- 
certain fancy, begone, and be yourselves the first 
victims of your folly. The breezes, that are now 
driving you forward across my surface, will rise to 
fury, and blow you into nothingness as you pro- 
ceed. Lost among the stormy gusts, where will 
be your use to others, or my recompense for your 
loss? You will not even exist to repent of this 
mad desertion of your home. Adieu ! for ever and 
for ever, adieu ! ” 

“Adieu, but not for ever ; ” answered the Vapours, 
as they dispersed before the wind. 

It was not a satisfactory parting, perhaps ; for 
often as their race had made the journey round the 


90 THE CIRCLE OF BLESSING. 

earth, it had never fallen within the power of any 
portion of them to explain the course of their 
career to the surface sea, which had originally 
grudged their departure. However, the Vapours 
had now commenced their circuit, and were carried 
onward by the steady south-east trade-winds to the 
regions of equatorial calms, that wonderful belt of 
heat and accumulation, where they w r ere met by 
breezes which in like manner were travelling from 
the north ; and here this meeting caused for awhile 
a lingering in the career of both. But these 
opposing winds, laden with vapours from the two 
hemispheres, had each their mission, and worked 
under an appointed law. 

It was their province to carry the exhalations 
from north and south into the cooler upper sky, 
where once more their course was free to travel 
round the world. Lifted up thus, however, no 
sooner had the Vapours entered a more temperate 
atmosphere, than their particles expanded, and a 
portion of them clung together in drops, which, 
whilst under the influence of excessive heat, was 
never the case. They thus became much heavier 
than before ; so heavy, indeed, that the winds were 
not able to bear them aloft. 

“ You cannot carry us all,” said the Vapours, to 
their struggling supporters. “ Some of us will, 
therefore, return with a message of comfort to the 
mighty Sea, to tell him all is well.” 

But even when they came down in torrents of 
rain to his bosom, the Sea grumbled still. “ It is 


THE CIRCLE OF BLESSING. 91 

well that a part, at least, of what was lost returns,” 
said he. But he neither knew nor cared what be- 
came of the rest. 

The rest, however, fared happily and well ; for 
high above earth and flea — so high, indeed, that 
they in no way interfered with the winds that swept 
below — they were borne along by the upper cur- 
rents of air which were travelling to the north, and 
carried them forward on their journey of bene- 
ficence and never-ceasing good. 

Surely, it must have been a sweet sensation to 
be drifted along by a never-varying breeze through 
the higher regions of the sky, undisturbed by care, 
in a dream of delicious idleness and ease. But 
this was but a portion of the career of the Vapours 
from the Sea. At the next meeting, at the out- 
skirts of the tropics, with travellers like themselves 
coming in the opposite direction, there was a fresh 
pressure of opposing breezes, a temporary lingering, 
and then a descent, by which they left those higher 
regions for ever. Henceforth, they were to be 
dispersed by surface winds on their course of use- 
fulness to man. 

And if, when cradled in that blissful passage 
high over the tropics, those Vapours had, for a time, 
forgotten their mission, there was no possibility of 
forgetting it henceforth. Taken up with trium- 
phant delight by all the varying breezes that sport 
over the northern hemisphere, there was no direc- 
tion in which they were not to be found. A por- 
tion w T as wanted here, another portion there; the 


92 


THE CIRCLE OF BLESSING. 


snows of Iceland, and the vineyards of Italy, the 
orange groves of Spain, and the river which pours 
over the mighty rocks at Niagara, must all be fed 
at their appointed seasons, and the food was travel- 
ling to them now. 

But the eye would weary, w'hich strove to look 
sympathisingly round the vast expanse of the globe. 
It is enough if w r e can follow the Vapours through 
some stages of their journey of love. 

***** 

On the summit of a mountain, over whose sides 
the gorse and heather were wont to flower together 
in bright profusion, and with their lovely inter- 
mixture of hues, all the ground was parched and 
dry. A burning sun by day, rarely followed by 
dewy nights ; a summer drought, in fact, had ruled 
for weeks over the spot, and the shrunken flower- 
buds and parched leaves bore painful witness to the 
fact. The little mountain tarn below was almost 
dry, and the leaves of the sundew-plants by its 
sides, which were wont to revel in the damp sur- 
rounding moss, had lost their nature altogether, and 
never now offered their coronet of sparkling drops 
to the admiration of those that passed. 

The pretty tumbling waterfall lower down, too, 
which travellers used to delight to visit, and which 
was fed by streams from the hills, was reduced to 
a miserable trickle. Cottage children were sent to 
fetch water from distances so great, that they sat 
down and wept by the road-side on their errand ; 
and farmers wore a gloomy, anxious look, which 


THE CIRCLE OF BLESSING. 93 

told of a thousand fears about their crops and 
cattle. 

But, while they were thus troubled and careful, 
lo, the rescue was coming from afar ! yea, travel- 
ling towards them upon the wings of the wind. 
Vapours from tropical seas, Vapours which had 
left behind them their no-longer-needed salts, were 
coming, accumulated as clouds, to fall as gracious 
rain and dews upon the thirsty regions of the north. 

They are variable and fantastic winds, perhaps, 
that course over the northern hemisphere. Not 
steady and uniform in their direction, like the 
trade-winds in the Tropics ; nor like those upper 
currents far above the trade-winds, which carry the 
Vapours to the second belts of calms. No ! vari- 
able and fantastic they certainly are, and, therefore, 
we cannot reckon on their arrival to a day, — nay, 
not to a month ; but on their arrival at last, we 
may always surely depend, and perhaps, in this 
trial of patient expectation, a lesson of quiet faith 
is intended to be learnt. 

And so, just as farmers, and cottage children, 
and the ^arth, and its flowers, and leaves, and 
springs of water, had all sunk into a state of dismal 
distrust and discomfort, the deliverance came to 
them as they slept ! 

Slight variations in the wind had been observed 
for more than a day; but still no change of weather 
took place, until one night a steady breeze from the 
south-west set in, and prevailed for hours. And 
presently there was a gathering up of clouds all 


94 


THE CIRCLE OF BLESSING. 


over the sky, though in the darkness of the night 
their arrival passed unobserved. 

Gracious clouds ! they were the Vapours of the 
Sea, which, after many wanderings, had found their 
way here, at last, on their mission of love. And, 
lo ! the sound of waters was heard once more on 
the dried-up hills, and sweet, heavy showers 
dropped down on the delighted Earth. All night 
long it continued, and all night long the Earth was 
streaming tears of joy ; and another day and another 
night succeeded, during which more or less of rain 
or dew continued to descend. 

“ Welcome, welcome, oh ye showers and dew !” 
were the Earth’s first words ; and, “ Leave me now 
no more*” her constant after-cry. 

“Poor Earth, poor Earth ! ” murmured the Va- 
pours, which, condensed into rain-drops, were trem- 
bling, like diamonds, on the leaves and flowers in 
the sunshine of the second dawn. “ Poor Earth, 
poor Earth ! you too refuse to learn the law which 
brought us here. What you have received so freely, 
will you not freely give ? ” 

“Nay; but linger with me yet,” expostulated 
the Earth; “ and let me rather store you up for my 
own use hereafter. What do I know of the future, 
and what it may bring forth ? How can I be sure 
that the fitful winds will supply me again in time 
of need ? I cannot afford to think of others. Leave 
me, leave me not.” 

“None must store against an uncertain future 
evil, when so many are suffering under a oresent 


THE CIRCLE OF BLESSING. 95 

one,” replied the Vapours ; “ nevertheless, a mes- 
sage of comfort will come to you, after we are 
gone.” 

And so, when the sun shone out in his heat and 
glory, the diamond rain-drops were drawn upwards 
from the flowers and leaves into the air once more. 
Only the little Sundews kept their coronets of crys- 
tal beads throughout the day, as was their custom ; 
though how they managed it, it would be hard 
to say. 

Perhaps as their own natural juices are so thick 
and clammy, these, mingling with the Vapours as 
they exuded, held them longer fast. 

“ You are our prisoners,” was the triumphant 
cry of the Sundew-leaves, as they glistened in their 
liquid gems. 

“ Nay, but why would you detain us, selfish 
plants ? ” exclaimed the Vapours. 

i( Oh, you shall go, you shall go ; but only gra- 
dually, as the moisture courses through our veins 
to re-supply your place. This is our way of life. 
But we must hear all from you first. All! all! 
all ! and most of all, why you have tarried so 
long, till we had almost perished in the dreadful 
drought?” 

It was a long story the Vapours had then to tell, 
of their irregular passage to the Polar Seas ; and 
how, after their chilly sojourn there as snow, they 
had passed southwards once more on the summits 
of drifting icebergs, and again been exhaled, and 
given back to the ministry of the wandering winds. 


96 THE CIRCLE OF BLESSING. 

“ Surely,” said they, “ we have touched no place 
in all our wild journeyings where we have not left 
some blessing behind. Here and there, indeed, 
folks think they have had too much of us, and here 
and there too little ; but, oh, my delicate friends, 
believe us, we are faithful and true to our mission 
all over the world. Behold, w r e pour into the earth 
as rain, or slide into it as moisture ; and lo, the soil 
gives its gases into our care, and the roots of the 
plants draw us and them up together, and feeding 
on them, expand and flourish, and grow ; and 
when the useful deed is done, and the sun shines 
down on our labour, up we ascend again to its ab- 
sorbing rays, to be carried forward again and again, 
to other gracious deeds. Blame us not, there- 
fore, if, in turning aside to some other case of need, 
we have come a little late to your hills. Own that 
you have not been forgotten !” 

“ It is true,” murmured the sundews in return ; 
“ but remember, we pine and die without your 
presence.” 

“ Dear little Sundews, there is not a plant in all 
the boggy heath that is so dear to us as you are. 
See now, we linger wflth you yet; there is moisture 
in your mossy bed around this tarn to last for many 
weeks ; and ever as a portion of it steals away, its 
place shall be supplied from below, so that your 
leaves shall never miss their sparkling diadem of 
gems.” 

The Sundews had no need to tremble after that ; 
but as the exhalations went up from the surface- 


THE CIRCLE OF BLESSING. 97 

ground, and tlie moisture sank lower and lower 
down into it, a fear stole over the Earth, that 
another drought might arise ; for she knew not that 
all would return to her again in due season. But, 
when in the cool of the evening the Vapours de- 
scended upon her bosom, as refreshing mist and i 
dew, she received a portion of comfort. Neverthe- 
less, like the Sea, she grumbled on. “ It is well 
that a part, at least, of what was lost, returns ! ” 
she remarked in her greedy anxiety, as the Sea had 
done before ; and, like him, she neither knew nor 
cared what became of the rest. 

There was a mission for every portion, however, 
and through the now saturated ground the rain- 
drops sank together, amidst roots, and stones, and 
soil, moistening all before them as they went, and 
replenishing the springs that ran among the hills. 
***** 

The tumbling Waterfall had, by this time, well- 
nigh given up hope. The mournful trickle with 
which it fell, was an absolute mockery of its former 
precipitous haste; — when lo! some sudden influence 
is at work, a rush of vigour flows into the exhausted 
veins; there is a swelling in the distant springs, 
nearer and nearer it comes, and now over the rocky 
ledge there is a heavier flow : a little more, and yet 
a little more ; and then, at last, a rush of water full 
and fresh is heard ! m 

“ Welcome, welcome ! oh, w Springs and 
Floods,” cried the Waterfall, as once more it rolled 
in its beauty along its precipitous course, scattering 
H 


98 THE CIRCLE OF BLESSING. 

foam and spray upon the moss and flowers that 
graced its edge. “ Stay in the mountains always, 
that I may thirst no more ; leave me, leave me not 
again !” 

“ You too, who live by giving and receiving,” 
cried the Vapours, as they flushed the stream — 
“you too, wishing to stop the gracious course of 
good? Oh shame, shame, shame !” 

And then, as if in mockery of the request, a 
playful gust blew off from the waterfall as it de- 
scended, some of its glittering spray, and tossed it 
to the sunshiny air, where it dispersed once more in 
smoky mist — but only to return again in time of 
need. 

***** 

Down in the lower country, where stately houses, 
enclosed in noble parks, adorned the land, a beauti- 
ful lake lay stretched under the noon-day sun. It 
w'as fed by the stream which, at some miles’ dis- 
tance, received the tumbling waterfall into its 
course, and then ran through the lake’s broad sheet, 
escaping at the further end in a quick flowing rill. 
On the placid mirror-like surface majestic swans 
swept proudly by, not unsusceptible of the freshen- 
ing in the water from the filling of the springs 
above. 

A little pleasure-boat w'as floating lazily about, 
impelled occasionally forward by the stroke of an 
oar from a youth, who with one companion of his 
own age and an elderly man who sat abstractedly 


THE CIRCLE OF BLESSING. 99 

reading a book, formed the passengers of this tiny 
bark. 

The rower’s young companion was lounging in a 
half-sitting, half-reclining posture in the bows of 
the boat, and both were gazing at the old Baronial 
Hall, which, with its quaint turrets, long terraces, 
and picturesque gardens, faced the lake at a slightly 
distant elevation, where it stood embosomed in 
trees. 

“ Well ! if the place were to be mine,” observed 
the lounger, with his eyes fixed upon it, “ I know 
exactly what I should do. I would throw all your 
agricultural and educational, and endless improve- 
ment schemes overboard at once; leave them for 
those whose business it is to look after them ; and 
enjoy myself, and live like a prince while I had the 
chance.” 

“ And die worse than a beggar at last,” cried the 
other youth, as he rested on his oars and looked at 
his cousin who had spoken — “ I mean without a 
friend ! You cannot secure even enjoyment in 
stagnation,” added^he. “ The very pond here is 
kept pure by giving out through a stream at one 
end, what it receives through a stream at the other.” 

“ And the stream from which it receives,” said 
the old man, looking up from his book, “is a type 
of God Himself ; and the stream to which it gives, 
is a type of the human race. Those who receive 
from the fountain, without giving to the stream, 
work equally against the laws of Nature and of 
God.” 


100 THE CIRCLE OF BLESSING. 

A few strokes of the oar here carried the boat 
away, but surely that was the voice of him who, in 
the bygone year, had startled the ignorant mur- 
murer in the voyage across the Line? Well is it 
with those who in the secrets of Nature read the 
wisdom of God ! 

Softly did that summer evening sink upon the 
park and the old Baronial Hall, and heavy were 
the mists and dews that hung over the woods, and 
gardens, and flowers, and great was the rejoicing 
in the country round, when, after a time, they were 
followed by fertilizing rains. Fertilizing rains S — 
the words are easily spoken, but who knows their 
full meaning, save he who has watched over 
corn-fields or vineyards, threatened with ill-timed 
drought? We take a great deal for granted in this 
world, and expect that everything as a matter of 
course ought to fit into our humours, and wishes, 
and wants; and it is often only when danger 
threatens, that we awake to the discovery, that the 
guiding reins are held by One whom we had well- 
nigh forgotten in our careless ease. 

“ If it had not thundered, the peasant had not 
made the sign of the cross,” is the rude proverb of 
a distant land; and peasant and king are alike 
implicated in its meaning. 

“ It is all right now,” observed the farmer, as he 
returned home in the evening, after contemplating 
the goodly acres drenched and dripping with rain. 

And it was all right indeed, for, long after the 
farmer had forgotten his previous anxieties in sleep, 



THE CIRCLE OF BLESSING. 101 

the circle of blessing was at work in the length and 
breadth of his fields. There, the condensed vapours 
sank into the willing soil, which gave to them hei 
gases and her salts. There, the fibres of the roots 
of corn or grass sucked up the welcome food which 
brought strength and power into the juices of the 
plant; and then, by slow but sure degrees, the 
stunted ears began to fill, and men said the harvest 
would be good. 

“ Stay with us for ever,” asked the Corn-ears of 
the Vapours, as they felt themselves swell under 
the delicious influence. The Vapours made no 
answer, for they did not like to speak of death ; 
but they dealt gently with the corn, and did not 
leave it till it had ripened gradually for the harvest, 
and no longer needed their aid ; and then they 
exhaled once more into the air, to follow out their 
mission elsewhere. 

****** 

A curly-headed urchin stood by a pump, looking 
disconsolately at the huge heavy handle, which he 
could not lift. A little watering-pot was grasped 
in his hands, and it was easy to see what he wanted. 
Some one passing by observed him, and with a 
smile gave him help. A very few strokes of the 
handle brought up the water from below, the little 
watering-pot was filled, and the child ran away, 
j He had a garden of his own : a garden in which a 
) few kidney-beans in one place, and sweet-peas in 

[ another, with scatterings of mustard and cress, 
formed a not very usual mixture ; but it served its 


102 THE CIRCLE OF BLESSING. 

purpose of giving employment and pleasure to the 
child. 

The kidney-beans, which he hoped to eat one day 
at dinner, were evidently the objects of his most 
attentive care, for he soaked them again and again 
with the water from his pot, tossing oiily a few drops 
of it over the flowers. Little guessed he of the 
long long journey the Vapours of the Sea had made 
before they helped to All the springs which fed 
the well over which the pump was built. Little 
guessed he either of what would become of them 
when, after helping to All his kidney-beans with 
delicate juices, they returned back to the ministry 
of the winds. 

When he touched his pinafore, after he had 
finished his work, he found it soaked with wet; 
and when, soon after, he saw it hung in front of 
the fire to dry, he sat down and amused himself by 
watching the steam as it rose from the linen, under 
the influence of heat. 

Trifling it seems to tell ; — an every-day occur- 
rence of life, not worth a record : yet there was a 
law even for the vapour that rose from the infant’s 
pinafore in front of the nursery fire. Nothing shall 
be lost of that which God has ordained to good ; 
and the Vapours were soon on their mission again. 
Through chimney or window they escaped to the 
cooler air, and returned to their ceaseless work. 

“ Give us of your salts,” was at last their request, 
as they percolated through the lower ground to join 
the mighty rivers which ran into the Sea. “ Give 


THE CIRCLE OF BLESSING. 103 

us of your salts, and lime, and mineral virtues, oh 
thou Earth ! that we may bear them with us to the 
Sea from whence we came.” 

“ Is not the Sea sufficient to itself?” inquired the 
jealous Earth. 

“None are sufficient to themselves, oh, careful 
Mother!” answered the Vapours as they streamed 
in water along their way. “ Small and great, great 
and small, we all depend on each other. How 
shall the Shells, and Coral Reefs, and Zoophytes of 
the deep, continue to grow and live, if you refuse 
them the virtues of your soil ? Give us of your 
salts, and lime, and the mineral deposits of your 
bosom, oh, Mother Earth ! that they may live and 
rejoice.” 

“Have you nothing to offer in return?” asked 
the still-hesitating Earth. 

“ Do you not know that we have left a blessing 
behind us wherever we have been?” exclaimed the 
Vapours. “ But no matter for the past. See, we 
will do ourselves as we would have you do. We 
will bind ourselves in beauty in the caves of your 
kingdom, and live with you for ever.” 

So as they past on their way, loading themselves 
with the virtues of the Earth, some turned aside, 
and sinking to the subterranean depths, oozed with 
their limy burden through the roofs of caverns and 
sides of rocks, and hung suspended in graceful 
stalactites, or shone out in many-sided crystal 
forms. 

“Now I am satisfied,” observed the Earth, 


104 THE CIRCLE OF BLESSING. 

“ What I see I know. They have left me some- 
thing behind for what they have taken away.” 

u And now we are satisfied,” cried the rest of 
the Vapours, as they poured into the rivers and 
were carried out into the Sea. “ Have we not 
returned with a blessing and treasures in our 
hand?” 

And thus, from age to age, ever since the pri- 
mary mists went up from the earth and watered the 
whole face of the ground, the mighty work has 
gone on, and still continues its course. For not to 
inactivity and idleness did the Vapours now return, 
but only to recommence afresh their labours of 
love. Yes ! evermore rejoicing on their way, 
through all varieties of accident, of climate, and 
of place, whether as Snow or Hail, as Showers 
or Dews, as Floods or Springs, as Rivers or as 
Seas, the waters are still obediently fulfilling His 
word who called them into being, and are carrying 
the everlasting Circle of Blessing round the world. 

Oh, ye showers and dew ; oh, ye winds of God ; 
oh, ye ice and snow ; oh, ye seas and floods . 
verily, even when man is mute and forgetful, ye 
bless the Lord, ye praise Him and magnify Him 
for ever ! 



THE LAW OF THE WOOD. 

“ Let every one of us please his neighbour for his good.” — 
Rom. xv. 2. 

EVER!” 

What a word to be heard in a wood 
on an early summer morning, before 
the sun had quite struggled through 
the mists, and before the dew had left the flowers ; 
and while all Nature was passing through the 
changes that separate night from day, adapting her- 
self gently to the necessities of the hour. 

“ Never !” 

What a word to come from a young creature, 
which knew very little more of what had gone 
before, than of what was coming after, and who 
could not, therefore, be qualified to pronounce a very 
positive judgment upon anything. But, somehow 
or other, it is always the young and inexperienced 
who are most apt to be positive and self-willed in 
their opinions ; and so, the young Spruce-fir, think 



106 THE LAW OF THE WOOD. 

ing neither of the lessons which Nature was teach- 
ing, nor of his own limited means of judging, stuck 
out his branches all around him in everybody’s 
face, right and left, and said, — 

“ Never!” 

It so startled a Squirrel, who was sitting in a 
neighbouring tree, pleasantly picking out the seeds 
of a fir-cone, that he dropped his treasured dainty 
to the ground; and springing from branch to 
branch, got up as high as he could, and then, look- 
ing down, remarked timidly to himself, “ What 
can be the matter with the Spruce-firs?” 

Nothing was the matter with the Spruce-firs, 
exactly ; but the history of their excitement was as 
follows They, and a number of other trees, were 
growing together in a pretty wood. There were 
oaks, and elms, and beeches, and larches, and firs 
of many sorts ; and, here and there, there was a 
silver-barked Birch. And there was one silver- 
barked Birch in particular, who had been observing 
the Spruce-firs all that spring ; noticing how fast 
they were growing, and what a stupid habit (as he 
thought) they had, of always getting into every- 
body’s way, and never bending to accommodate 
the convenience of others. 

He might have seen the same thing for some 
years before, if he had looked ; but he was not 
naturally of an inquisitive disposition, and did not 
trouble himself with other people’s affairs : so that 
it was only when the Spruce-fir next him had come 
so close that its branches fridged off little pieces of 


THE LAW OF THE WOOD. 107 

his delicate paper-like bark, whenever the wind 
was high, that his attention was attracted to the 
subject. 

People usually become observant when their 
own comfort is interfered with, and this was the 
case here. However little the Birch might have 
cared for the Spruce-fir’s behaviour generally, there 
was no doubt that it was very disagreeable to be 
scratched in the face ; and this he sensibly felt, and 
came to his own conclusions accordingly. 

At first, indeed, he tried to sidle and get out of 
the Fir’s way, being himself of a yielding, good- 
natured character, but the attempt was quite a 
hopeless one. He could not move on one side a 
hundredth part as fast as the fir-branches grew ; so 
that, do what he would, they came pushing up 
against him, and teased him all day. 

It was quite natural, therefore, that the poor 
Birch should begin to look round him, and ex- 
amine into the justice and propriety of such a pro- 
ceeding on the part of the Spruce-firs ; and the 
result was, that he considered their conduct objec- 
tionable in every way. 

“ For,” said he, (noticing that there was a little 
grove of them growing close together just there,) 
“ if they all go on, shooting out their branches in 
that manner, how hot and stuffy they will get! 
Not a breath of air will be able to blow through 
them soon, and that will be very bad for their 
health ; besides which, they are absolute pests to 
society, with their unaccommodating ways. I must 


T08 THE LAW OF THE WOOD. 

really, for their own sakes, as well as my own, give 
them some good advice.” 

And accordingly, one morning, — that very early 
summer morning before described, — the Birch, 
having had his silvery bark a little more scratched 
than usual, opened his mind to his friends. 

“ If you would but give way a little, and not 
stick out your branches in such a very stiff manner 
on all sides, I think you would find it a great deal 
more comfortable for yourselves, and it would cer- 
tainly be more agreeable to your neighbours. Do 
try !” 

“ You are wonderfully ready in giving unasked 
advice !” remarked the young Spruce-fir next the 
Birch, in a very saucy manner. “We are quite 
comfortable as we are, I fancy ; and as to giving 
wag, as you call it, what, or whom are we called 
upon to give way to, I should like to know ? ” 

“ To me, and to all your neighbours,” cried the 
Birch, a little heated by the dispute. 

On which the Spruce-fir next the Birch cried 
“Never!” in the most decided manner possible; 
and those beyond him, cried “ Never!” too; till at 
last, all the Spruce-firs, with one accord, cried 
“ Never !” “Never !” “Never !” and half frightened 
the poor Squirrel to death. Every hair on his 
beautiful tail trembled with fright, as he peeped 
down from the top of the tree, wondering what 
could be the matter with the Spruce-firs. 

And certainly, there was one thing the matter 
with them, for they were very obstinate ; and as 


THE LAW OF THE WOOD. 109 

nobody can be very obstinate without being very 
selfish, there was more the matter with them than 
they themselves suspected, for obstinacy and selfish- 
ness are very bad qualities to possess. But, so ig- 
norant were they of their real character, that they 
thought it quite a fine thing to answer the Birch- 
tree’s mild suggestion in such a saucy manner. In- 
deed, they actually gave themselves credit for the 
display of a firm, independent spirit; and so, while 
they shouted “ Never ! ” they held out their branches 
as stiffly as possible towards each other, till they 
crossed and recrossed, and plaited together. On 
which they remarked — 

“ What a beautiful pattern this makes ! How 
neatly we fit in one with the other ! How pretty 
we shall look when we come out green all over ! 
Surely the Wood-pigeons would have been quite 
glad to have built their nests here if they had 
known. What a pity they did not, poor things ! I 
hear them cooing in the elm-tree yonder, at a very 
inconvenient height, and very much exposed.” 

“ Don’t trouble yourselves about us,” cooed the 
Wood-pigeons from their nest in the elm. “We 
are much happier where we are. We want more 
breeze and more leafy shade, than you can give us 
in your close thick-growing branches.” 

“ Every one to his taste,” exclaimed the young 
Spruce-fir, a little nettled by the Wood-pigeons’ 
cool remarks ; “ if you prefer wind and rain to 
shelter, you are certainly best where you are. But 
you must not talk about leafy shade, because every 


110 THE LAW OF THE WOOD. 

one knows that you can have nothing of it where 
you are, to what you will find here, when we come 
out green all over.” 

“ But when will that be?” asked the Wood- 
pigeons, in a gentle voice. “ Dear friends, do you 
not know that the spring is over, and the early 
summer has begun, and all the buds in the forest 
are turned to leaves? And you yourselves are 
green everywhere outside, not only with your ever- 
green hue, but with the young summer’s shoots. I 
sadly fear, however, that it is not so in your inner 
bowers.” 

“ Perhaps, because we are evergreens, our sprout- 
ing may not go on so regularly as with the other 
trees,” suggested one. But he felt very nervous at 
his foolish remark. It was welcomed, however, as 
conclusive by his friends, who were delighted to 
catch at any explanation of a fact which had begun 
to puzzle them. 

So they cried out, “ Of course ! ” with the ut- 
most assurance, and one of them added, “ Our outer 
branches have been green and growing for some 
time, and doubtless we shall be green all over 
soon ! ” 

“ Doubtless !” echoed every Spruce-fir in the 
neighbourhood, for they held fast by each other’s 
opinions, and prided themselves on their family 
attachment. 

“We cannot argue,” cooed the Wood-pigeons 
in return. “ The days are too short, even for love r 
how can there ever be time for quarrelling?” 


THE LAW OF THE WOOD. Ill 

So things went on in the old way, and many 
weeks passed over ; but still the interlaced branches 
of the Spruce-firs were no greener than before. 
But beautiful little cones hung along the outermost 
ones ; and, judging by its outside appearance, the 
grove of firs looked to be in a most flourishing state. 

Alas ! however, all within was brown and dry; 
and the brownness and dryness spread further and 
further, instead of diminishing ; and no wonder, 
for the summer was a very sultry one, and the con- 
fined air in the Fir-grove became close and un- 
healthy ; and after heavy rains, an ill-conditioned 
vapour rose up, from the earth, and was never dis- 
persed by the fresh breezes of heaven. 

Nevertheless, the Spruce-firs remained obstinate 
as ever. They grew on in their old way, and tried 
hard to believe that all was right. 

“ What can it matter/’ argued they, “ whether 
we are green or not, inside? We are blooming 
and well everywhere else, and these dry branches 
don’t signify much that I can see. Still, I do 
wonder what can be the reason of one part being 
more green than another.” 

“ It is absurd for you to wonder about it,” ex- 
claimed the Birch, who became more irritated every 
day. “ There is not a tree in the world that could 
thrive and prosper, if it persisted in growing as you 
do. But it is of no use talking ! You must feel 
and know that you are in each other’s way every 
time you move ; and in everybody else’s way too. 
Tn mine . most particularly.” 


112 THE LAW OF THE WOOD. 

“My dear friend/’ retorted the Spruce-fir, “your 
temper makes you most absurdly unjust. Why, we 
make a point of never interfering with each other, 
or with anybody else ! Our rule is to go our own 
way, and let everybody else do the same. Thus 
much we claim as a right.” 

“Thus much we claim as a right!” echoed the 
Spruce-fir grove. 

“ Oh, nonsense about a right,” persisted the 
Birch. “ Where is the good of having a right to 
make both yourself and your neighbours miserable ? 
If we each of us lived in a field by ourselves, it 
would be all very well. Every one might go his 
own way then undisturbed. But mutual accom- 
modation is the law of the wood, or we should all 
be wretched together.” 

“ My friend,” rejoined the Spruce-fir, “ you are 
one of the many who mistake weakness for ami- 
ability, and make a merit of a failing. We are of 
a different temper, I confess ! We are, in the first 
place, capable of having ideas, and forming opinions 
of our own, which everybody is not; and, in the 
second place, the plans and habits w r e have laid 
down to ourselves, and which are not wrong in 
themselves, we are courageous enough to persist in. 
even to the death.” 

The Spruce-fir bristled all over with stiffness, as 
ne refreshed himself by this remark. 

“ Even,” inquired the Birch, in an ironical tone ; 
“even at the sacrifice of your own comfort, and that 
of all around you ?” 


THE LAW OF THE WOOD. 113 

“ You are suggesting an impossible absurdity,” 
answered the vexed Spruce-fir, evasively. “ What 
is neither .wrong nor unreasonable in itself can do 
no harm to anybody, and I shall never condescend 
to truckle to other people’s whims as to my line of 
conduct. But there are plenty, who, to get credit 
for complaisance to their neighbours, would sacri- 
fice their dearest principles without a scruple ! ” 

“Come, come!” persisted the Birch; “ let us 
descend from these heights. There are plenty of 
other people, my friend, who would fain shelter the 
most stupid obstinacy, and the meanest selfishness, 
behind the mask of firmness of character or prin- 
ciple, — or what not. Now what principle, I should 
like to know, is involved in your persisting in your 
stiff unaccommodating way of growing, except the 
principle of doing what you please at the expense 
of the feelings of other people?” 

“ Insolent !” cried the Spruce-fir ; “ we grow in 
the way which Nature dictates; and our right to 
do so must therefore be unquestionable. We 
possess, too, a character of our own, and are not 
like those who can trim their behaviour into an 
unmeaning tameness, to curry favour with their 
neighbours.” 

“ I ought to be silent,” cried the Birch; “for 
I perceive my words are useless. And yet, I would 
like you to listen to me a little longer. Does the 
Beech-tree sacrifice her character, do you think, 
when she bends away her graceful branches to 
allow room for the friend at her side to flourish too ? 


i 


114 THE LAW OF THE WOOD. 

Look, how magnificently she grows, stretching 
protectingly, as it were, among other trees; and 
yet, who so accommodating and yielding in their 
habits as she is ?” 

“ It is her nature to be subservient, it is ours to 
be firm !” cried the Spruce-fir. 

“ It is her nature to throw out branches all round 
her, as it is that of every other tree,” insisted the 
friendly Birch : “ but she regulates the indulgence 
of her nature by the comfort and convenience of 
others.” 

“ I scorn the example you would set me,” cried 
the Spruce-fir ; “ it is that of the weakest and most 
supple of forest trees. Nay, I absolutely disapprove 
of the tameness you prize so highly. Never, I 
hope, will you see us bending feebly about, and be- 
lying our character, even for the sake of flourishing 
in a wood ! ” 

It was all in vain, evidently; so the Birch re- 
solved to pursue the matter no further, but he mut- 
tered to himself, — 

u Well, you will see the result.” 

On which the Spruce-fir became curious, and 
listened for more. The Birch, however, was silent, 
and at last, the Spruce-fir made a sort of answer in 
a haughty, indifferent tone. 

“ 1 do not know what you mean by the result.” 

“ You will know some day,” muttered the Birch, 
very testily, (for the fir-branches were fridging his 
bark cruelly — the wind having risen — ) “ and even 
I shall be released from your annoyance, before 
long ! ” 


THE LAW OF THE WOOD. 115 

“ I will thank you to explain yourself in intel- 
ligible language,” cried the Spruce-fir, getting un- 
easy. 

“ Oh ! in plain words, then, if you prefer it,” 
replied the Birch. 11 You are all of you dying.” 

“ Never!” exclaimed the Spruce-fir; but he 
shook all over with fright as he uttered it. And when 
the other Spruce-firs, according to custom, echoed 
the word, they were as tremulous as himself. 

“ Very well, we shall see,” continued the Birch. 
“ Every one is blind to his own defects, of course ; 
and it is not pleasant to tell home truths to ob- 
stinate people. But there is not a bird that hops 
about the wood, who has not noticed that your 
branches are all turning into dry sticks ; and before 
many years are over, there will be no more green 
outside than in. The flies and midges that swarm 
about in the close air round you, know it as well as 
we do. Ask the Squirrel what he thinks of your 
brown crackly branches, which would break under 
his leaps. And as to the Wood-pigeons, they gave 
you a hint of your condition long ago. But you 
are beyond a hint. Indeed, you are, I believe, be- 
yond a cure.” 

They were, indeed; but a shudder passed through 
the Fir-grove at these words, and they tried very 
hard to disbelieve them. Nay, when the winter 
came, they did disbelieve them altogether ; for, 
when all the trees were covered with snow, no one 
could tell a dead branch from a live one; and, when 
the snow fell off, they who had their evergreen 
outside, had an advantage over many of the trees 


116 THE LAW OF THE WOOD. 

by which they were surrounded. It was a time of 
silence, too, and quiet, for the leafless trees were in 
a half-asleep state, and had no humour to talk. 
The evergreens were the only ones who, now and 
then, had spirit enough to keep up a little conver- 
sation. 

At last, one day, the Spruce-firs decided to con- 
sult with a distant relation of their own, the Scotch- 
fir, on the subject. He formed one of a large grove 
of his own kind, that grew on an eminence in the 
wood. But they could only get at him through a 
messenger; and, when the Squirrel, who was sent 
to inquire whether he ever gave way in his growth 
to accommodate others, came back with the ansv r er 
that, “ Needs must w T hen there was no help!” the 
Spruce-firs voted their cousin a degraded being 
even in his own eyes, and scorned to follow an ex- 
ample so base. 

Then they talked to each other of the ill-nature 
of the world, and tried to persuade themselves that 
the Birch had put the worst interpretation on their 
condition, merely to vex them ; and told them- 
selves, in conclusion, that they had nothing to fear. 
But their anxiety w r as great, and when another 
spring and summer succeeded to the winter, and all 
the other trees regained their leaves, and a general 
waking up of life took place, a serious alarm crept 
over the Spruce-fir grove ; for, alas ! the brownness 
and dryness had spread still further, and less and 
less of green w r as to be seen on the thickset 
branches. 


THE LAW OF THE WOOD. 117 

Had they but listened to advice, even then, all 
might have been well. Even the little birds told 
them how troublesome it was to hop about among 
them. Even the Squirrel said he felt stifled if he 
ran under them for a cone. But they had got into 
their heads that it was a fine thing to have an inde- 
pendent spirit, and not mind what anybody said; 
and they had a notion that it was a right and justi- 
fiable thing to go your own way resolutely, pro- 
vided you allowed other people to do the same. 
But, with all their philosophy, they forgot that 
abstract theories are only fit for solitary life, and 
can seldom be carried out strictly in a wood. 

So they grew on, as before, and the Birch-tree 
ceased to talk, for either his silver peel had all 
come off, and he was hardened ; or else, he had 
taught himself to submit unmurmuringly to an evil 
he could not prevent. Certain it is, that no further 
argument took place, and the condition of the 
Spruce-firs attracted no further notice; till, one 
spring morning, several seasons later, the whole 
wood was startled by the arrival of its owner, a 
new master, who was come to pay his first visit 
among its glades. 

The occasional sound of an axe-stroke, and a 
good deal of talking, were heard from time to time, 
for the owner was attended by his woodman : and 
at last he reached the Spruce-fir grove. 

Alas ! and what an exclamation he gave at the 
sight, as well he might; for nearly every one of 
the trees had fallen a victim to a selfish mistake, 


118 THE LAW OF THE WOOD. 

and had gradually died away. Erect they stood, it 
is true, as before, but dried, withered, perished 
monuments of an obstinate delusion. The owner 
and the woodman talked together for a time, and 
remarked to each other that half those trees ought 
to have been taken away years ago : that they were 
never fit to live in a cluster together; for, from 
their awkward way of growing, they were half of 
them sure to die. 

But of all the Grove there was but one who had 
life enough to hear these words ; and to him the 
experience came too late. All his old friends were 
in due time cut down before his eyes ; and he, who 
by an accident stood slightly apart, and had not 
perished with the rest, was only reserved in the 
hope that he might partially recover for the con- 
venience of a Christmas-tree. 

It was a sad, solitary summer he passed, though 
the fresh air blew freely round him now, and he 
rallied and grew, as well as felt invigorated by its 
sweet refreshing breath ; and though the little birds 
sung on his branches, and chattered of happiness 
and love ; for those who had thought with him and 
lived with him, were gone, and their places knew 
them no more. 

Ah, certainly there had been a mistake some- 
where, but it did not perhaps signify much now, to 
ascertain -where; and no reproaches or ridicule were 
cast upon him by his neighbours ; no, not even by 
the freed and happy silver-barked Birch ; for a 
gentler spirit than that of rejoicing in other people’s 
misfortunes prevailed in the pretty wood. 


THE LAW OF THE WOOD. 


119 


So that it was not till Christmas came, and his 
doom was for ever sealed, that the Spruce-fir 
thoroughly understood the moral of his fate. 

But then, when the crowds of children were col- 
lected in the brightly-lighted hall, where he stood 
covered with treasures and beauty, and when they 
all rushed forward, tumbling one over another, in 
their struggles to reach his branches ; each one 
going his own w T ay, regardless of his neighbour’s 
wishes or comfort ; and when the parents held back 
the quarrelsome rogues, bidding them one give 
place to another, — “ in honour preferring one ano- 
ther,” — considering public comfort, rather than in- 
dividual gratification : then, indeed, a light seemed 
to be thrown on the puzzling subject of the object 
and rules of social life ; and he repeated to himself 
the words of the silver-barked Birch, exclaiming, — 
“ Mutual accommodation is certainly the law of 
the wood, or its inhabitants would all be wretched 
together.” 

It was his last idea. 




ACTIVE AND PASSIVE. 

“ They also serve who only stand and wait.” — Milton. 

ESTLESSlife! restless life !” moaned 
the Weathercock on the church tower 
by the sea, as he felt himself swayed 
suddenly round by the wind, and 
creaked with dismay; “ restless, toiling life, and 
everybody complaining of one all the time. There's 
that tiresome weathercock pointing east , cried the old 
woman, as she hobbled up the churchyard path to the 
porch last Sunday; now I know why I have got all 
my rheumatic pains hack again. Then, in a day or 
two, came the farmer by on his pony, and drew up 
outside the wall to have a word with the grave- 
digger. A bad look-out , Tomkins, said he, if that 
rascally old weathercock is to be trusted , the wind's 
got into the wrong quarter again , and we shall have 
more rain. Was it my fault if he did find out 
through me that the wind was in, what he called, 
the wrong quarter ? Besides, the wind always is 



ACTIVE AND PASSIVE. 


21 


in somebody’s wrong quarter, I verily believe ! 
But am I to blame ? Did I choose my lot? No, 
no ! Nobody need suppose I should go swinging 
backwards and forwards, and round and round, all 
my life, telling people what they don’t want to 
know, if I had my choice about the matter. Ah ! 
how much rather would I lead the quiet, peaceful 
existence of my old friend, the Dial, down below 
yonder on his pedestal. That is a life, indeed !” 

“ How he is chattering away up above there,” 
remarked the Dial from below ; “ he almost makes 
me smile, though not a ray of sunshine has fallen 
on me through the livelong day, — alas ! I often 
wonder what he finds to talk about. But his active 
life gives him subjects enough, no doubt. Ah ! 
what would I not give to be like him ! But all is 
so different with me, — alas ! 1 thought I heard my 
own name too, just now. I will a§k. Halloo ! up 
above there. Did you call, my sprightly friend? 
Is there anything fresh astir ? Tell me, if there is. 
I get so weary of the dark and useless hours ; so 
common’ now, — alas ! What have you been talking 
about?” 

u Nothing profitable this time, good neighbour,” 
replied the Weathercock ; for, in truth, you have 
caught me grumbling.” 

“ Grumbling ? Grumbling, you ?” 

“ Yes, grumbling, I ! Why not?” 

“ But grumbling in the midst of an existence so 
gay, so active, so bright,” pursued the Dial ; “ it 
seems impossible.” 


122 


ACTIVE AND PASSIVE. 


“ Gay, active, bright ! a pretty description 
enough ; but what a mockery of the truth it covers ! 
Look at me, swinging loosely to every peevish 
blast that flits across the sky. Turned here, turned 
there, turned everywhere. The sport of every 
passing gust. Never a moment’s rest, but when 
the uncertain breezes choose to seek it for them- 
selves. Gay, active, bright existence, indeed ! 
Restless, toiling life I call it, and all to serve a 
thankless world, by whom my very usefulness is 
abused. But you, my ancient friend, you, in the 
calm enjoyment of undisturbed repose, steady and 
unmoved amidst the utmost violence of storms, how 
little can you appreciate the sense of weariness I 
feel ! A poor judge of my troubled lot are you in 
your paradise of rest ! ” 

“ My paradise of rest, do you call it ?” exclaimed 
the Dial ; “ an .ingenious title, truly, to express 
what those who know it practically, feel to be little 
short of a stagnation of existence. Dull, purpose- 
less, unprofitable, at the mercy of the clouds and 
shades of night ; I can never fulfil my end but by 
their sufferance, and in the seasons, rare enough at 
best, when their meddling interference is with- 
drawn. And even when the sun and hour do smile 
upon me, and I carry out my vocation, how seldom 
does any one come near me to learn the lessons I 
could teach. I weary of the night ; I weary of the 
clouds ; I weary of the footsteps that pass me by. 
Would that I could rise, even for a few brief hours, 
to the energy and meaning of a life like yours !” 


ACTIVE AND PASSIVE. 


123 


“ This is a strange fatality, indeed !” croaked the 
Weathercock in reply, “that you, in your un- 
troubled calm, should yearn after the restlessness I 
sicken of. That I, in what you call my gay and 
active existence, should long for the quiet you 
detest ! ” 

“ You long for it because you are ignorant of its 
nature and practical reality,” groaned the Dial. 

11 Nay, but those are the very words I would 
apply to you, my ancient friend. The blindest ig- 
norance of its workings can alone account for your 
coveting a position such as mine.” 

“ If that be so, then every position is wrong,” 
was the murmured remark in answer; but it never 
reached the sky, for at that moment the mournful 
tolling of a bell in the old church-tower announced 
that a funeral was approaching, and in its vibrations 
the lesser sound was lost. 

And as those vibrations gathered in the air, they 
grouped themselves into a solemn dirge, which 
seemed as if it rose in contradiction to what had 
just been said. 

For it gave out to the mourners who were fol- 
lowing the corpse to its last earthly resting-place, 
that every lot was good, and blessed to some par- 
ticular end. 

For the lots of all (it said,) were appointed, and 
all that was appointed was good. 

Little, little did it matter, therefore, (it said,) 
whether the lot of him who came to his last resting- 
place had been a busy or a quiet one ; a high or a 


124 


ACTIVE AND PASSIVE. 


low one ; one of labour or of endurance. If that 
which was appointed to be done, had been well 
done, all was well. 

It gave out, too, that every time and season was 
good, and blessed to some particular purpose ; that 
the time to die was as good as the time to be born, 
whether it came to the child who had done but 
little, or to the man who had done much. 

For the times and seasons, (it said,) were ap- 
pointed, and all that was appointed was good. 

Little, little did it matter, therefore, (it said,) 
whether the time of life had been a long one or a 
short one. If that which was appointed to be used, 
had been rightly used, all was right. 

Echoing and re-echoing in the air, came these 
sounds out of the old bell-tower, bidding the 
mourners not to mourn, for both the lots and the 
times of all things were appointed, and all that was 
appointed was good. 

The mourners wept on, however, in spite of the 
dirge of the bell ; and perhaps it was best that they 
did so, for where are the outpourings of penitence 
so likely to be sincere, or the resolutions of amend- 
ment so likely to be earnest, as over the graves of 
those we love ? 

So the mourners wept ; the corpse was interred ; 
the clergyman departed, and the crowd dispersed ; 
and then there was quiet in the churchyard again 
for a time. 

Uninterrupted quiet, except w hen the wandering 
gusts drove the Weathercock hither and thither, 


ACTIVE AND PASSIVE. 125 

causing him to give out a dismal squeak as he 
turned. 

But at last there was a footstep in the old church- 
yard again, a step that paced up and down along 
the paved path ; now westward towards the sea, 
now eastward toward the Lych-gate at the entrance. 

It was a w r eather-beaten old fisherman, once a 
sailor, who occasionally made of that place a fore- 
castle walk for exercise and pondering thoughts, 
since the time when age and growing infirmities 
had disabled him from following regularly the more 
toilsome parts of a fisherman’s business, which were 
now carried on by his two grown-up sons. 

He could do a stroke of work now and then, it is 
true, but the nows and thens came but seldom, and 
he had many leisure hours on his hands in which 
to think of the past, and look forward to the future. 

And what a place was that churchyard for awak- 
ening such thoughts ! There as he walked up and 
down the pavement, his own wife’s grave was not 
many yards distant from his feet; and yet, from 
amidst these relics and bitter evidences of finite 
mortality, he could look out upon that everlasting 
sea, which seems always to stretch away into the 
infinity we all believe in. 

Perhaps, in his own way, the sailor had often felt 
this, although he might not have been able to give 
any account of his sensations. 

Up and down the path he paced, lingering al- 
ways a little at the western point ere he turned; 
and with his telescope tucked under his arm ready 


126 


ACTIVE AND PASSIVE. 


for use, he stood for a second or two looking sea- 
ward, in case a strange sail should have come in 
eight. 

The sexton, who had come up to the churchyard 
again to finish the shaping of the new grave, nodded 
to him as he passed, and the sailor nodded in re- 
turn ; but neither of them spoke, for the sailor’s 
habits were too well known to excite attention, and 
the sexton had his work to complete. 

But presently, when half-way to the Lych-gate, 
the sailor stopped suddenly short, turned round 
hastily, and faced the sea, steadying the cap on his . 
head against the gale which was now blowing 
directly on his face — looked up to the sky — looked 
all around — looked at the Weathercock, and then 
stood, as if irresolute, for several seconds. 

At last, stepping over the grave-stones, he went 
up to the stone pedestal, on the top of which the 
Dial lay, waiting for the gleams of sunshine which 
had on that day fallen rarely and irregularly 
upon it. 

“ — If the clouds would but break away for a 
minute,” — mused the old man to himself. 

And soon after, they did so, for they had begun 
to drive very swiftly over the heavens, and the sun- 
light, streaming for a few seconds on the dial-plate, 
revealed the shadow of the gnomon cast upon the 
place of three o’clock. 

The sailor lingered by the Dial for several minutes 
after he had ascertained the hour; examining the 
figures, inscriptions, and dates. A motto on a 


ACTIVE AND PASSIVE. 


127 


little brass plate was let into the pedestal below : 

“Mlatcth-for pe knots not tljc Ijonr/’ There 

was some difficulty in reading it, it was so blotched 
and tarnished with age and long neglect. Indeed, 
few people knew there was an inscription there, at 
all ; but the old sailor had been looking very closely, 
and so found it out, and then he spelt it all through, 
word by word. 

It was to be hoped that the engraver (one Thomas 
Trueman), who claimed to have had this warning 
put up for the benefit of others, had attended to it 
himself, for he had long ago — ay ! nearly a hundred 
years before — gone to his last account. The ap- 
pointed hour had come for him, whether he had 
watched for it or not. 

Perhaps some such thoughts crossed the sailor’s 
mind, for certainly, after reading the sentence, he 
fell into a reverie. Not a long one, however, for it 
was interrupted by the voice of the sexton, who, 
with his mattock over his shoulder, was passing 
back on his way home, and called out to the sailor 
to bid him good evening. 

“ Good night, Mr. Bowman,” said he; “ we’ve 
rather a sudden change in the wind, haven’t we?” 

“ Ay, ay,” answered Bowman, by no means dis- 
pleased at this deference to his opinion, and he 
stepped back again to the path, and joined his vil- 
lage friend. 

“ It is a sudden change, as you say, and an awk- 
ward one too, for the wind came round at three 
o’clock, just at the turn of tide ; and it’s a chance 


128 


ACTIVE AND PASSIVE. 


but what it will keep this way for hours to come ; 
and a gale all night’s an ugly thing, Tomkins, 
when it blows ashore.” 

“ I hope you may be mistaken, Mr. Bowman,” 
rejoined the sexton ; “ but I suppose that’s not 
likely. However, they say it’s an ill wind that 
blows nobody good, so I suppose I shall come 
in for something at last,” and here the sexton 
laughed. 

“ At your age, strong and hearty,” observed the 
sailor, eyeing the sexton somewhat contemptuously, 
“you can’t have much to wish for, I should think.” 

“ Strong and hearty’s a very good thing in its 
way, Mr. Bowman, I’ll not deny; but rest’s a 
very good thing too, and I wouldn’t object to one of 
your idle afternoons now and then, walking up 
and down the pavement, looking which way the 
wind blows. That’s a bit of real comfort to my 
thinking.” 

“ We don’t know much of each other’s real com- 
forts, I suspect,” observed the sailor, abstractedly, 
and then he added — 

“ You’ll soon be cured of wishing for idle after- 
noons when they’re forced upon you, Tomkins. 
But you don’t know what you’re talking about. 
Wait till you’re old, and then you’ll find it’s I that 
might be excused for envying you, and not you 
me.” 

“ That’s amazing, Mr. Bowman, and I can’t see 
it,” persisted Tomkins, turning round to depart. 
“ In my opinion you’ve the best of it ; but any 


ACTIVE AND PASSIVE. 120 

how, we’re both of us oddly fixed, for we’re neither 
of us pleased.” 

With a friendly good-night, but no further re- 
mark, the two men parted, and the churchyard was 
emptied of its living guests. 

When the sailor sat down with his sons an hour 
or two afterwards to their evening meal ; said he, 
“We must keep a sharp look-out, lads, to-night; 
the wind came round at three with the turn of the 
tide, and it blows dead ashore. I’ve been up to the 
Captain’s at the Hall, and borrowed the use of his 
big boat in case it’s wanted, for unless the gale 
goes down with the next tide, — which it won’t, I 
think, — we might have some awkward work. Any- 
how, boys, we’ll watch.” 

* * * * * 

“ Just what I said,” muttered the Dial, as the 
sound of the last footsteps died on the churchyard 
path. “ Just what I said ! Everything’s wrong, be- 
cause everybody’s dissatisfied. I knew it was so. 
We’re right in grumbling; that’s the only thing 
we’re right in. At least, I’m sure Tm right in 
grumbling. I’m not so certain about my neighbour 
on the tower above. Halloo ! my sprightly friend, 
do you hear? Did you notice? Isn’t it just as I 
said? Everything’s wrong to everybody.” 

The strong west wind continued to sweep through 
the churchyard, and bore these observations away ; 
but the weathercock meanwhile was making his 
own remarks to himself. 

“ There, now ! There’s the old story over again, 

K 


130 


ACTIVE AND PASSIVE. 


only now it’s the west wind that’s wrong instead of 
the east ! I wish anybody would tell me which is 
the right wind ! But this, of course, is an ill wind, 
and an ugly gale, and they’re afraid it will blow all 
night, (I wonder why it shouldn’t, it blows very 
steadily and well, as I think,) and then they shake 
their heads at each other, and look up at me and 
frown. What’s the use of frowning? They never 
saw me go better in their lives. It’s a fine firm 
wind as ever blew, though it does take one’s breath 
rather fast, I own. If it did not make quite so 
much howling noise, I should have had a word or 
two about it with my old comrade below, who sits 
as steady as a rock through it all, I’ve no doubt. 
There is one thing I am not quite easy about my- 
self ... In case this west wind should blow a 
little, nay, in short, a great deal harder, even than 
now, I wonder whether there would be any danger 
of my being blown down ? I’m not very fond of 
my present quarters, it’s true, but a change is some- 
times a doubtful kind of thing, unless you can choose 
what it shall be. I wonder, too, whether people 
would be glad if I was gone ; or whether, after all, 
I mightn’t be rather missed ? And I wonder, too — ” 
But it began to blow too hard for wondering, or 
talking, or doing anything, but silently holding 
fast, for the gale was rising rapidly ; so rapidly that 
before midnight a hurricane was driving over land 
and ocean, and in its continued roaring, mingled as 
it was with the raging of a tern pest-tossed sea, everv 
other voice and sound was lost. 


ACTIVE AND PASSIVE. 


131 


Tracts of white foam, lying like snow-fields on 
the water, followed the breakers as they fell down 
upon the shore with a crash of thunder, and were 
visible even through the gloom of night. 

Hour after hour the uproar continued, and hour 
after hour the church clock struck, and no one 
heard. Due west pointed the Weathercock, vary- 
ing scarcely a point. Firm and composed lay the 
Dial on his pedestal, and the old church on her 
foundations, mocking the tumult of the elements by 
their dead, immoveable calm. 

In the village on the top of the cliff many were 
awakened by the noise ; and one or two, as they 
lay listening in their beds, forgot for a time their 
own petty troubles and trilling cares, and uttered 
wishes and prayers that no vessels might be driven 
near that rock-bound shore, on that night of 
storm ! 

Vain wishes!, vain prayers! As they turned 
again to their pillows to sleep, with their children 
around them, housed in security and peace, the 
blue lights of distress were sent up by trembling 
hands into the vault of heaven, and agonized hearts 
wondered whether human eye would see them, or 
human hand could aid. 

And it might easily have happened, that, in that 
terrible night, no eye had caught sight of the sig- 
nals, or caught sight of them too late to be of use, 
or that those who had seen had been indifferent, or 
unable to help. 

But it was not so, or the Weathercock would 


L32 


ACTIVE AND PASSIVE. 


have pointed, and the Dial have shown the hour, 
and the sailor looked at both in vain. 

And this was not the case ! 

People were roused from their pillowed slumbers 
the next morning to hear that a vessel, with a pas- 
senger crew on board of her, was driving on the 
rocks. From cottage casements, and from the 
drawing-room windows of houses on the top of the 
cliff, the fatal sight was seen, for the dismasted ship 
rolling helplessly on the waters, drifted gradually 
in front of the village, looking black as if with the 
shadow of death. 

Delicate women saw it, who, all unaccustomed 
to such sights, and shuddering at their own help- 
lessness, could only sink on their knees, and ask if 
there was no mercy w r ith the Most High. Men 
saw r it whom age or sickness had made weak as 
children, but who had once been brave and strong;; 
and their hearts burned within them as they turned 
away, and sickened at the spectacle of misery they 
could not even try to avert. Children saw it, who, 
mixing in the village crowd that by degrees gathered 
on the cliff, never ceased the vain prattling inquiry 
of why some good people did not go to help the 
poor people who were drowning in the ship? 

“ Young ’un, you talk,” growled one old fellow, 
who was eyeing the spectacle somewhat coolly 
through a telescope ; “ and it’s for such as you to 
talk ; but who’s to get off a boat over such a surf as 
yon ? Little use there’d be in flinging away more 
lives to save those that’s as good as gone alreadv.” 


ACTIVE AND PASSIVE. 


133 


* How you go on, Jonas !” cried a woman from 
the crowd. “ Here’s a lady has fainted through 
you’re saying that; and what do you know about 
it ? While there’s life there’s hope. My husband 
went down to the shore hours and hours ago, before 
it was light.” 

“ With coffins, I suppose,” shouted some one, 
and the jest w r ent round, for the woman v’ho had 
spoken was the sexton’s w r ife. But many a voice 
cried u shame,” as Mrs. Tomkins turned aw r av to 
lend her aid in carrying the fainting lady to her 
home. 

It was strange how time w r ore on, and no change 
for better or worse seemed to take place in the con- 
dition of the unhappy vessel, as far as those on 
land could judge of her. But she was at least a 
mile from shore ! and even with a glass it was im- 
possible to detect clearly the movements and state 
of her crew. 

It was evident at one time that she had ceased to 
drift, and had become stationary, and all sorts of 
conjectures were afloat as to the cause ; the most 
popular and dreadful of which being, that she was 
gradually filling with water, and must go down. 

This was the reason (old Jonas said) why par*, of 
the crew had got into the boat that was being towed 
along behind by means of a rope, so that, when 
every other hope was over, the rest of the men 
might join them, and make a last desperate effort to 
escape the fate of the sinking vessel. 

But still time wore on, and no change took place, 


134 


ACTIVE AND PASSIVE. 


nor did the vessel appear to get lower in the water, 
although at times the breakers rolled over her 
broken decks, and cries of “ It’s all over ! There 
she goes !” broke from the crowd. The man at 
the helm seemed still to maintain his post ; those 
in the boat behind still kept their places, and the 
few visible about the ship were busied, but no one 
could say how. 

At last somebody shouted that they were raising 
a jury-mast, though whether as a signal to some 
vessel within sight of them, or for their own use, 
remained doubtful for a time ; but by-and-by a 
small sail became visible, and soon after, it was ob- 
served that the vessel had resumed her course, and 
'.hat she was no longer drifting, but steering ! It 
was clear, therefore, that she had been anchored 
previously, that the crew had not given up hope, 
and that they were now trying to weather the 
rocky bay, and get into the nearest harbour. 

Old Jonas turned away, and lent his glass to 
others. The vessel was not filling with water, it 
was true, but could such a battered hulk, rolling as 
it did, ever live through the “ race ” at the ex- 
tremity of the bay ? He doubted it, for his part — 
but he was disposed to doubt ! 

Others were more hopeful, and many a “ Thank 
God for His goodness” relieved the anxious breasts 
of those who had hitherto looked on in trembling 
suspense. 

The villagers were gradually dispersing to their 
different occupations, when a couple of boys, who 


ACTIVE AND PASSIVE. 


135 


had gone down by the cliffs to the shore, came run- 
ning breathless back with the news that the old 
sailor’s (Mr. Bowman’s) cottage, the only one near 
the shore, was shut up, the key gone, and nobody 
there. This new surprise was heartily welcome, 
coming as it did to enliven the natural reaction of 
dulness that follows the cessation of great excite- 
ment ; and the good wives of the village, with their 
aprons over their heads, huddled together, more 
full of wonder and conjecture over the disap- 
pearance of the Bowmans, than over the fate of the 
still peril-surrounded ship. It was then discovered, 
but quite by an accident, that some one else had dis- 
appeared — no other than Tomkins, the sexton. A 
neighbour, on her road home, accidentally dropping 
in at Mr. Tomkins’s door, to ask after the lady that 
had fainted, found the good woman sitting over the 
fire, rocking to and fro, and crying her heart out. 

“ Go away, woman!” cried she to her neigh- 
bour, as the door opened. “ Get away wi’ ye ! I 
want none of ye ! I want none of your talking ! 
I’ll not listen to any of ye till I know whether the 
ship’s gone down or not !” 

“ The woman’s beside herself!” cried the neigh- 
bour. “ Why, you don’t know what you are saying, 
surely. The ship isn’t likely to go down now ! 
There’s a mast and a sail up, woman !” 

“ Ay, ay, but the ‘ race ’ ” cried Mrs. Tomkins, 
rocking to and fro in despair. 

“ The 1 race ’ will not hurt it, there’s a many says. 
It was only old Jonas that shook his head over 


136 


ACTIVE AND PASSIVE. 


that. Eh, woman, but you’ve lost your head with 
watching them. Where’s your good man ?” 

Mrs. Tomkins almost shrieked, “ There ! he’s 
there — with them! I saw him through Jonas’s 
glass.” 

The neighbour was thunderstruck. Here was 
news indeed. But she pressed the matter no fur- 
ther, thinking in truth that Mrs. Tomkins’s head 
was unsettled ; and so, after soothing her a bit in 
the best fashion she could, she left her to talk the 
matter over in the village. 

Mrs. Tomkins was not unsettled in her head at 
all. She had been one of those who had had a peep 
through Jonas’s glass, and, to her horror, had de- 
tected, by some peculiarity of dress, the form of her 
husband sitting in the boat behind the vessel. The 
terror and astonishment that seized her rendered her 
mute, and she had retired to her own cottage to 
think it out by herself — what it could mean, and 
how it could have happened — but she had caught 
Jonas’s remark about the “race,” and on reaching 
her own fireside, all thoughts merged in the one 
terrible idea that her husband might go down with 
the devoted ship. 

The report of Mrs. Tomkins’s hallucination soon 
spread, and there is no saying to what a pitch of 
mysterious belief in some supernatural visitation it 
might not have led, had not the arrival of Bowman’s 
daughter in the village, and the account she gave, 
explained the whole affair. 

Bowman and his sons had not gone regularly to 


ACTIVE AND PASSIVE. 


137 


bed at all on the night previous, but, true to their 
intention, had kept watch in turn, walking up and 
down along the front of their cottage, which stood 
upon ground slightly raised above the shore. It 
was the old man himself who happened to be watch- 
ing when the first blue lights went up, and it was 
then considerably past midnight. 

“What a mercy!” was his first exclamation, 
after hurrying to the cottage, and bidding his sons 
follow him to the Hall ; “ what a mercy !” and he 
threw up his right arm with a clenched fist into the 
air, his whole frame knit up by strong emotion. 
The boys, not knowing what he meant, had only 
stared at him in surprise , for a moment, for there 
was no time for talking. But the mind of the old 
man had, with the first sight of the blue lights, 
gone back to his churchyard lounge, to his observa- 
tions on the weather, to the startling inscription, and 
to his determination to watch and provide. It had 
gone forward, too, as well as backward. Forward, 
with the elastic determination, and hope, which 
comes like inspiration to a good cause ; and for him 
by anticipation the daring deed had been done, and 
the perishing crew rescued. “ — What a mercy !” 
— the exclamation comprehended past, present, and 
future. 

As by the position of the signals of distress, Bow- 
man judged it would be- best to put off the boat 
from the place where it usually lay, he locked up 
his cottage (for the girl refused to be left there 
alone), taking the key with him, and proceeded at 


138 


active and passive. 


once to the Hall ; then recollecting that his friend, 
the sexton, had made an urgent request to be called 
should any disaster occur, he sent one of the lads 
up the cliff to the village, to give notice of what 
they were about. 

But before the boy was half-way there, he met poor 
Tomkins himself, who, rendered restless and uneasy 
by Bowman’s fears and the terrible weather, had 
come out to inquire how matters were going on. 
Thus, therefore, he joined their expedition at once, 
while his wife remained as ignorant of his move- 
ments as the rest of the village. 

The Captain, a fine old sailor, round the evening 
of whose days the glories of Trafalgar shed an un- 
dying halo, had made it clearly understood, when 
first applied to, that, in case of the boat being 
wanted his own assistance also might be depended 
upon ; and he was true to his word ; so that as 
soon as the dawn had broken, five men were to be 
seen on the beach under the Hall, up to their waists 
almost in water, struggling with the foaming 
breakers, and pushing off, with an energy which 
nothing but the most desperate resolution could 
have given them, a boat from the shore. Few 
words were spoken ; the one man gave orders, and 
the rest obeyed — promptly, implicitly, and wil- 
lingly, as if they had worked for years in company ; 
and thus, life and death at stake, they rowed over 
the waste of waters with mute courage, and a hope 
which never for an instant blinded them to the 
knowledge of the peril they incurred. 


ACTIVE AND PASSIVE. 


139 


And thus it was that ere the full daylight had 
revealed to the villagers the disaster at sea, and 
even while they were shuddering for the fate of the 
supposed doomed vessel, help and comfort had 
reached the despairing hearts of the bewildered 
men on board. 

There were plenty of people afterwards to say 
that anybody might have known — if they had only 
thought about it — that that man who was lashed to 
the helm, and who had never changed his position 
for an instant, could have been nobody but the 
grand old Captain who had been so long in the 
wars ! 

There were plenty also to say that Bowman, old 
as he was, was constantly on the look out, and was 
sure to be the first to foresee a disaster, and suggest 
what ought to be done, even when he could not do 
it himself! and didn’t everybody know, too, that 
Tomkins was always foremost to have a hand in a 
job, whatever it might be? 

The vessel cleared the “ race,” and got safe to 
the next harbour, and half the village went with 
Bowman’s daughter and Mrs. Tomkins (now weep- 
ing as hard for joy as she had before done for 
terror), to meet them as they landed. 

What a talking there was ! and what bowing to 
the Captain, who, dripping wet and cold, had never- 
theless a joke for everybody, and even made Mrs. 
Tomkins smile by saying her husband had come 
with them on the look-out for a job, but happily 
his professional services had not been required, 


340 ACTIVE AND PASSIVE. 

though he had done his duty otherwise like a 
man. 

But the wet fellow-labourers had to be dried and 
taken care of, and the half-exhausted crew had to 
be attended to and comforted ; and the time for 
chatting comfortably over the events of that night 
did not come till people’s minds and spirits had 
cooled down from the first excitement. 

* * * * * 

The weather cleared up wonderfully after that 
terrible storm had passed over, and the following 
Sunday shone out over village and sea with all the 
brilliancy of spring. 

It was just as they were ’’ssuing from church 
after morning service, that the Captain observed 
Bowman standing by the porch, as if waiting till 
the crowd had passed. He looked far more up- 
right than usual, and had more of a smile upon his 
face than was commonly seen there. The Captain 
beckoned to him to come and speak, and Bowman 
obeyed. 

“ This has made a young man of you, Bowman,” 
was the Captain’s observation, and he smiled. 

“ It has comforted me, Sir, I’ll not deny,” was 
Bowman’s answer. 

“ I hope it will teach as well as comfort you,” 
continued the Captain, with a half good-natured, 
half stern manner. “ You’ve been very fond of 
talking of age and infirmity, and ‘cumbering the 
ground,’ and all that sort of thing. But what it 
means is, quarrelling with your lot. We may not 


ACTIVE AND PASSIVE. 


141 


always know what we’re wanted for, nor is it for us 
to inquire, but nobody is useless as long as he is 
permitted to live. You can’t have a shipwreck 
every day to prove it, Bowman, but this shipwreck 
ought to teach you the lesson for the rest of your 
life.” 

“ I hope it will, Sir,” cried Bowman. 

“ Not that you’ve so much credit in that matter, 
after all, as I thought,” observed the Captain, with 
a sly smile. “By your own account, if it hadn’t been 
for these comrades of yours in the churchyard 
here,” and as he spoke the Captain pointed with 
his stick to the Dial and Weathercock, “you might 
have gone to bed and snored composedly all the 
night through, without thinking of whether the 
storm would last, or what it would do.” 

Bowman touched his hat in compliment to the 
joke, recollecting with a sort of confusion that, as 
they were bringing the vessel into port, he had told 
the Captain the whole story of his noticing the 
change of wind at the particular hour of three, 
harping nervously and minutely on the importance 
of each link in the little chain of events, and dwel- 
ling much on the half-effaced inscription, the words 
of which had never left his mind, from the moment 
when he got into the Captain’s boat to that when 
they reached the shore in safety. 

Scarcely knowing how to reply, Bowman began 
again — 

“Well, your honour, it’s really true, for if it 
hadn’t been that — ” 


142 


ACTIVE AND PASSIVE. 


“ I know, I know,” interrupted the Captain, 
laughing. “And now let us see your friends. I 
must have a peep at the inscription myself.” 

The old sailor led the way over the grassy graves 
to the Dial, and pointed out to his companion the 
almost illegible words. 

There was a silence for several minutes, after the 
Captain had bent his head to read ; and when he 
raised it again, his look was very grave. Except 
for the mercy that had spared their lives in so great 
a risk, the hour might have been over for them. 

“ Bowman,” cried the Captain at length, in his 
old good-natured way, “ these comrades of yours 
shall not go unrewarded any more than yourself. 
Before another week is over, you must see that this 
plate is cleaned and burnished, so that all the parish 
may read the inscription; and as to the Weather- 
cock, I must have him as bright as gilding can 
make him before another Sunday. Come, here’s 
work for you for the week, and the seeing that this 
is done will leave you no time for grumbling, eh, 
old fellow?” 

Bowman bowed his lowest bow. It fell in with 
all his feelings to superintend such an improvement 
as this. 

“ And while you’re looking after them, don’t for- 
get the lesson they teach,” continued the Captain. 

Bowman bowed again, and was attentive. 

“ I mean that everything, as well as everybody, 
is useful in its appointed place, at the appointed 
time. But neither we nor they can choose or 
foresee the time.” 


ACTIVE AND PASSIVE. 


143 


On the following Sunday, the sun himself scarcely 
exceeded in brilliancy the flashing Weathercock,, 
which hovered gently between point and point on 
the old church-tower by the sea, as if to exhibit his 
splendour to the world. Not a creak did he make 
as he moved, for all grumbling was over, and he 
was suspended to a nicety on his well-oiled pole. 
Below, and freshly brightened up and cleaned, the 
Dial basked in the sunlight, telling one by one the 
fleeting hours, while the motto underneath it spoke 
its warning, in letters illuminated as if with fire. 
Many a villager hung about the once-neglected 
plate, and took to heart those words of divine 
wisdom, 

“ Mate!?, for ge fcnoto not t£e f?our ; ” 

and many an eye glanced up to the monitor of 
storms and weather, and echoed the “ What a 
mercy !” of old Bowman the sailor. 

***** 

“ Are you silent, my sprightly comrade?” in- 
quired the Dial from below, of his shining friend 
above. 

“ Only a little confused and overpowered at first,” 
was the answer of the Weathercock. “My respon- 
sibility is great, you know. 1 have a great deal to 
do, and all the world is observing me just now.” 

“ That’s true, certainly,” continued the Dial. 
“ Things are coming round in a singular manner. 
Everything’s right, after all ; but under such a 
cloud as we were a short time ago, it was not very 
easy to find it out.” 


144 


ACTIVE AND PASSIVE. 


“ Undoubtedly not, and a more excusable mistake 
than ours could not well be imagined. People with 
fifty times our advantages, are constantly falling into 
the same errors.” 

“ Which is such a comfort,” pursued the Dial, 
smiling as he glowed in the sunbeams. “ How- 
ever,” added he, “ that’s a good idea of the old 
gentleman that was here just now, and I shall try 
and remember it for future occasions, for it really 
appears to be true. ‘ Everything is useful in its 
place at the appointed time.’ That was it, wasn’t 
it?” 

“ Exactly. And, conscious as I feel just now of 
my own responsibility, I could almost add, (in 
confidence to you, of course, my ancient friend,) 
that I have a kind of sensation that everything is 
useful in its place, always, and at all times, though 
people mayn’t always find it out.” 

“ Just my own impression,” was the Dial’s Iasi 
remark. 



DAILY BREAD. 


“ Your heavenly Father kuoweth that ye have need of all 
these things.” — Matthew vi. 32 . 


WISH your cheerfulness were a little 
better timed, my friend,” remarked a 
Tortoise, who for many years had in- 
habited the garden of a suburban villa, 
to a Robin Redbreast, who was trilling a merry 
note from a thorn-tree in the shrubbery. “ What 
in the world are you singing about at this time of 
year, when I, and everybody else of any sense, are 
trying to go to sleep, and forget ourselves?” 

“ I beg your pardon, I am sure,” replied the 
Robin ; “ I did not know it would have disturbed 
you.” 

“ You must be gifted with very small powers of 
observation then, my friend,” rejoined the Tortoise. 
“ Here have I been grubbing my head under the 
leaves and sticks half the morning, to make myself 
a comfortable hole to take a nap in ; and always, 
L 



146 


DAILY BREAD. 


just as I am dropping off, you set up one of your 
senseless pipes.” 

“ You are not over-troubled with politeness, good 
sir, I think,” observed the Robin ; “ to call my 
performance by such an offensive name, and to find 
fault with me for want of observation, is the most 
unreasonable thing in the world. This is the first 
season I have lived in the garden, and neither in 
the spring nor in the few musical months of summer 
have you ever objected to my singing. How was 
I to know you would dislike it now ?” 

“ Your own sense might have told you as much, 
without my giving myself the trouble of expla- 
nation,” persisted the Tortoise. “ Of course, it’s 
natural enough, and not disagreeable, to hear you 
little birds singing round the place, when there is 
something to sing about. It rather raises one’s 
spirits than otherwise. For instance, when the 
weather becomes mild in the early year, and the 
plants begin to grow and get juicy, and it is about 
time for me to get up from my winter’s sleep, I 
have no objection to be awakened by your voices. 
But now, in this miserable season, when the fruits 
and flowers are gone, and when even the leaves 
that are left are tough and dry, and there is not a 
dandelion that I care to eat; and when it gets 
colder and colder, and damper and damper every 
day, this affectation of merriment on your part is 
both ridiculous and hypocritical. It is impossible 
that you can feel happy yourself, and you have no 
business to pretend to it.” 


DAILY BREAD. 


147 


“ But, begging your pardon once more, good 
sir; I do feel happy, whatever you may think to 
the contrary,” answered the Robin. 

“ What, do you mean to say that you like cold, 
and damp, and bare trees, with scarcely a berry 
upon them ?” 

“ I like warm sunny days the best, perhaps,” re- 
plied the Robin, “ if I am obliged to think about 
it and make comparisons. But why should I 
do so ? I am quite comfortable as it is. If there is 
not so much variety of food as there has been, there 
is, at any rate, enough for every day, and every- 
body knows that enough is as good as a feast. Fot 
my part, I don’t see how I can help being con- 
tented.” 

“ Contented ! what a dull idea, to be just con- 
tented ! I am contented myself, after a fashion ; 
but you are trying to seem happy, and that is a 
very different sort of thing.” 

“ Well, but happy ; I am happy, too,” insisted 
the Robin. 

“ That must be then because you know nothing 
of what is coming,” suggested the Tortoise. “ As 
yet, while the open weather lasts, you can pick up 
your favourite worms, and satisfy your appetite. 
But, when the ground has become so hard that the 
worms cannot come through, or your beak get at 
them, what will you do?” 

“ Are you sure that will ever happen ?” inquired 
the Robin. 

“ Oh ! certainly, in the course of the winter, at 


148 


DAILY BREAD. 


some time or another ; and, indeed, it may happen 
any day now, which makes me anxious to be asleep 
and out of the way.” 

“ Oh, well, if it happens now, I shall not mind 
a bit,” cried the Robin; “there are plenty of berries 
left!” 

“ But supposing it should happen when all the 
berries are gone?” said the Tortoise, actually teased 
at not being able to frighten the Robin out of his 
singing propensities. 

“Nay, but if it comes to supposing ,” exclaimed 
the Robin, “ I shall suppose it won’t, and so I 
shall be happy still.” 

“ But I say it may happen,” shouted the Tor- 
toise. 

“And I ask will it?” rejoined the Robin, in 
quite as determined a manner. 

“ Which you know I cannot answer,” retorted 
the Tortoise again. “ Nobody knows exactly either 
about the weather or the berries beforehand.” 

“ Then let nobody trouble themselves before- 
hand,” persisted the Robin. “ If there was any- 
thing to be done to prevent or provide, it would be 
different. But as it is, we have nothing to do but 
to be happy in the comfort each day brings.” 
Here the Robin trilled out a few of his favourite 
notes, but the Tortoise soon interrupted him. 

“ Allow other people to be happy, then, as well 
as yourself, and cease squalling out of that tree. I 
could have forgiven you, had the branches been 
Aill of haws ; but, as they are all withered or eaten, 


DAILY BREAD. 


149 

you can have no particular excuse for singing in 
that particular bush, rather than elsewhere, so let 
me request you at once to go.” 

“ Of course I will do so,” answered the Robin, 
politely. “ It is the same thing to me exactly, so 
I wish you a good morning, and, if you desire it, a 
refreshing sleep.” 

So saying, the Robin flew from the thorn-tree to 
another part of the grounds, where he could amuse 
himself without interruption ; and the Tortoise 
began to hustle under the leaves and rubbish again, 
with a view to taking his nap. 

But, by-and-by, as the morning wore away, the 
frosty feeling and autumnal mists cleared off ; and 
when the sun came out, which it did for three or 
four hours in the early afternoon, the day became 
really fine. 

The old Tortoise did not fail to discover the fact ; 
and not having yet scratched himself a hole com- 
pletely to his mind, he came out of the shrubbery 
and took a turn in the sunshine. 

“ This is quite a surprise, indeed,” said he to 
himself. “ It is very pleasant, but I am afraid it 
will not last. The more’s the pity ; but, however, 
I shall not go to bed just yet.” 

With these words, he waddled slowly along to 
the kitchen garden, where he was in the habit of 
occasionally basking under the brick wall ; and 
now, tilting himself up sideways against it, he 
passed an hour, much to his satisfaction, in ex- 
posing his horny coat to the rays of the sun ; a feat 


150 


DAILY BREAD. 


which he never dared to perform during the heats 
of summer. 

Meanwhile, the poor little Robin continued his 
songs in a retired corner of the grounds, where no 
one objected to his cheerful notes. A tiny grove 
it was, with a grassy circle in the middle of it, 
where a pretty fountain played night and day. 

During the pauses of his music, and especially 
after the sun came out, he wondered much to him- 
self about all the strange uncomfortable things the 
Tortoise had said. Oh, to think of his having 
wanted to go to sleep and be out of the way ; and 
now here was the sunshine making all the grove as 
warm as spring itself! If he had not been afraid 
the Tortoise might consider him intrusive, he 
would have gone back and told him how warm and 
pleasant it was ; but absolutely he durst not. 

Still, he could not, on reflection, shut his eyes to 
the fact, that there were no other songsters in the 
grove just then beside himself, and he wondered 
what was the reason. Time was, when the Night- 
ingale was to be heard every night in this very 
spot ; but, now he came to think of it, that beauti- 
ful pipe of his had ceased for months ; and where 
the bird himself was, nobody seemed to know. 

The Robin became thoughtful, and perhaps a 
little uneasy. 

There was the Blackbird, too; — what was he 
about that he also was silent? Was it possible that 
all the world was really, as the Tortoise said, think- 
ing it wise to go to sleep and be out of the way ? 


DAILY BREAD. 


151 


The Robin got almost alarmed. So much so, 
that he flew about, until he met with a Blackbird, 
whom he might question on the subject, and of him 
he made the enquiry, why he had left off singing? 

The Blackbird glanced at him with astonish- 
ment. 

“ Who does sing in the dismal autumn and 
winter?” said he. “ Really, I know of scarcely 
any who are bold and thoughtless enough to do so, 
except yourself. The Larks may, to be sure, but 
they lead such strange lives in the sky, or in seclu- 
sion, that they are no rule for any one else. Your 
own persevering chirruping is (in my humble 
judgment) so out of character with a season in 
which every wise creature must be apprehensive 
for the future, that I can only excuse it on the 
ground of an ignorance and levity which you have 
had no opportunity of correcting.” 

“ It would be kinder to attribute it to a cheerful 
contentment with whatever comes to pass,” cried 
the Robin, ruffling his feathers as he spoke. “ I 
rejoice in each day’s blessing as it comes, and never 
wish for more than does come. You, who are 
wishing the present to be better than it is, and fear- 
ing that the future may be worse, are meanwhile 
losing all enjoyment of the hour that now is. You 
think this wise. To me it seems as foolish as it is 
ungrateful !” 

With these words the Robin flew away as fast as 
he could, for, to say the truth, he felt conscious of 
having been a little impertinent in his last remark. 


152 


DAILY BREAD. 


He was rather a young bird to be setting other 
people right; but a Robin is always a bold fellow, 
and has moreover rather a hot temper of his own, 
though he is a kind creature at the bottom. He 
had been insulted too, there was no doubt; but 
when people feel themselves in the right, what need 
is there of ruffling feathers and being saucy ? 

And the Robin did honestly feel himself in the 
right ; but, oh ! how hard it is to resist the influence 
of evil suggestions, even when one knows them to 
be such, and turns aside from them. They are so 
apt to steal back into the heart unawares, and 
undermine the principle that seemed so steady be- 
fore. To a certain extent, this was the case with 
our poor little friend ; and those who are disposed 
to judge harshly of his weakness, must remember 
that he was very young, and could not be expected 
to go on right always without a mistake. 

Certain it is, that he drooped awhile in spirits, 
as the winter advanced. He sang every day, it is 
true, and would still have maintained his own 
opinions against any one who should have opposed 
them ; but he was decidedly disturbed in mind, 
and thought sadly too much, for his own peace 
and comfort, of what both the Tortoise and Black- 
bird had said. 

The colder the days became, the more he became 
depressed; not that there was any cold then that 
he really cared about, but he was fidgeting about 
the much greater cold which he had been told was 
coming; and, as he hopped about on the grass 


DAILY BREAD. 


153 


round the fountain, picking up worms and food, he 
was ready to drop a tear out of his bright black 
eye at the thought of the days when the ground 
was to be so hard that the worms could not come 
out, or his beak reach them. 

Had this state of things gone on long, the Robin 
would have begun to wish to go to sleep, like the 
Tortoise ; and no more singing would have been 
heard in the plantation of the suburban villa that 
year. 

But Robins are brave-hearted little fellows, as 
well as bold and saucy; and one bright day our 
friend bethought himself that he would go and 
talk the matter over with an old Woodlark, who he 
had heard frequented a thicket at a considerable 
distance off. 

On his way thither, he heard several larks sing- 
ing high up in the sky over the fields ; and by the 
time he reached the thicket he was in excellent 
spirits himself, and seemed to have left all his 
meagrims behind. 

It was fortunate such was the case, for when, as 
he approached the thicket, he heard the Woodlark’s 
note, it was so plaintive and low, that it would 
have made anybody cry to listen to it. And when 
the Robin congratulated him on his singing, the 
Woodlark did not seem to care much for the com- 
pliment, but confided to his new acquaintance, that 
although he thought it right to sing and be thank- 
ful, as long as there was a bit of comfort left, he 
was not so happy as he seemed to be, since in 


164 


DAILY BREAD. 


reality he was always expecting to die some day of 
having nothing at all to eat. 

o o 

“For,” said he, “when the snow is on the 
ground, it is a perfect chance if one finds a morsel 
of food all day long.” 

“ But I thought you had lived here several 
seasons,” suggested the Robin, who in his braced 
condition of mind was getting quite reasonable 
again. 

“ So I have,” murmured the Woodlark, heaving 
his breast with a touching sigh. 

“And you did not die of having nothing to eat, 
last winter?” observed the Robin. 

“It appears not;” ejaculated the Woodlark, as 
gravely as possible, and with another sigh; whereat 
the Robin’s eye actually twinkled with mirth, for 
he had a good deal of fun in his composition, and 
could not but smile to himself at the Woodlark’s 
solemn way of admitting that he was alive. 

“ Nor the winter before?” asked he. 

“ No,” murmured the Woodlark again. 

“Nor„the winter before that?” persisted the 
saucy Robin. 

“ Well, no ; of course not,” answered the Wood- 
lark, somewhat impatiently, “ because I am here, 
as you see.” 

“Then how did you manage when the snow 
came, and there was no food?” inquired the Robin. 

“ I never told you there was actually no food in 
those other winters,” answered the Woodlark, some- 
what peevishly, for he did not want to be disturbed 


DAILY BREAD. 


155 


in his views. ‘ 1 Little bits of things did acciden- 
tally turn up always. But that is no proof that it 
will ever happen again. It was merely chance !” 

“ Ah, my venerable friend, ” cried the Robin ; 
“ have you no confidence in the kind chance that 
has befriended you so often before?” 

“ I can never be sure that it will do so again,” 
murmured the Woodlark, despondingly. 

“ But when that kind chance brings you one 
comfortable day after another, why should you 
sadden them all by these fears for by-and-by?” 

“It is a weakness, I believe,” responded the 
Woodlark. “ I will see what I can do towards 
enjoying myself more. You are very wise, little 
Robin ; and it is a wisdom that will keep you happy 
all the year round.” 

Here the Woodlark rose into the air, and per- 
formed several circling flights, singing vigorously 
all the time. The old melancholy pervaded the 
tone, but that might be mere habit. The song was, 
at any rate, more earnest and strong. 

“ That is better already,” cried the Robin, gaily; 
“and for my part, if I am ever disposed to be dull 
myself, I shall think of what you told me just now 
of all the past winters ; namely, that little bits of 
things did always accidentally turn up. What a 
comforting fact ! ” 

“ To think of my ever having been able to com- 
fort anybody!” exclaimed the Woodlark. “I 
must try to take comfort myself.” 

“ Ay, indeed,” cried the Robin, earnestly ; “ it 


156 


DAILY BREAD. 


is faithless work to give advice which you will not 
follow yourself.” 

So saying, the Robin trilled out a pleasant fare- 
well, and returned to the shrubbery-grounds, where, 
in an ivy-covered wall, he had found for himself a 
snug little winter’s home. 

It was during the ensuing week, and while the 
Robin was in his blithest mood, and singing away 
undisturbed by megrims of any kind, but rejoicing 
in the comforts of each day as it came, that the 
Tortoise once more accosted him. 

When Robin first heard his voice he was startled, 
and feared another scolding, but he was quite mis- 
taken. The old Tortoise was sitting by the side of 
an opening in the ground, which he had scratched 
out very cleverly with his claws. It was in a 
corner among some stones which had lain there for 
years ; and one large one in particular overhung 
the entrance of the hole he had dug. The wind 
had drifted a vast quantity of leaves in that direc- 
tion, and some of them had been blown even into 
the hole itself, so that it looked like a warm under- 
ground bed.. 

“ Hop down to me, little bird !” was the Tor- 
toise’s address, in a quite friendly voice ; an order 
with which the Robin at once complied. “ Ah, 
you need not be afraid,” continued he, as the 
Robin alighted by his side. “ I am quite happy 
now. See what a comfortable place I have made 
myself here in the earth. There, there, put your 
head in and peep. Did you ever see anything so 
snug in your life?” 


DAILY BREAD. 


157 


The Robin peered in with his sharp little eye, 
and really admired the Tortoise’s ingenious labour 
very much. 

“ Hop in,” cried the Tortoise gaily ; “ there’s 
room enough and to spare, is there not?” 

Robin hopped in, and looked round. He was 
surprised at the size and convenience of the place, 
and admitted that a more roomy and comfortable 
winter’s bed could not be wished for. 

u Who wouldn’t go to sleep?” cried the Tor- 
toise ; “ what say you, my little friend ? But you 
need not say ; I see it in your eye. You are not 
for sleep yourself. Well, well, we have all our 
different ways of life, and yours is a pleasant folly, 
after all, when it doesn’t disturb other people. And 
you won’t disturb me any more this year, for I 
have made my arrangements at last, and shall soon 
be so sound asleep, that I shall hear no more of 
your singing for the present. It’s a nice bed, eh ? 
isn’t it? Not so nice, perhaps, as the warm sands 
of my native land; but the ground, even here, is 
much warmer inside than people think, who know 
nothing of it, but the cold damp surface. Ah, if it 
wasn’t, how wrnuld the snowdrop and crocus live 
through the winter? Well, I called you here to 
say good-bye, and show you where I am, and to 
ask you to remember me in the Spring ; if — that 
is, of course, — you survive the terrible weather that 
is coming. You don’t mind my having been some- 
what cross the other day, do you? I am apt to 
get testy now and then, and you disturbed me in 


158 


DAILY BREAD. 


my nap, which nobody can bear. But you will 
forgive and forget, won’t you, little bird?” 

The kind-hearted Robin protested his affectionate 
feeling in a thousand pretty ways. 

“ Then you won’t forget me in the Spring,” 
added the Tortoise ; but come here and sit on the 
laurel bush, and sing me awake. Not till the days 
are mild, and the plants get juicy, of course, but as 
soon as you please then. And now, good-bye. 
There’s a strange feeling in the air to-day, and 
before many hours are over there will be snow and 
frost. Yours is a pleasant folly. I wish it may 
not cost you dear. Good-bye.” 

Hereupon the old Tortoise huddled away into 
the interior of his hole, where he actually disap- 
peared from sight; and as, soon afterwards, the 
drifting leaves completely choked up the entrance 
of the place, no one could- have suspected what was 
there, but those who knew the secret beforehand. 
He had been right in his prognostication of the 
weather. A thick, gloomy, raw evening was suc- 
ceeded by a bitterly cold night, and towards the 
morning the over- weigh ted clouds began to dis- 
charge themselves of some of their snow ; and as 
the day wore, the flakes got heavier and heavier ; 
and as no sunshine came out to melt them, and a 
biting frost set in, the country w T as soon covered 
with a winding-sheet of wdiite. And now, indeed, 
began a severe trial of the Robin’s patience and 
hope. It is easy to boast while the sun still shines, 
if ever so little ; but it is not till the storm comes 
that the mettle of principle is known. 


DAILY BREAD. 


159 


“ There are berries left yet,” said he, with cheer- 
ful composure, as he went out to seek for food, and 
found a holly-tree by the little gate of the planta- 
tion, red with its beautiful fruit. And, after he had 
eaten, he poured out a song of joy and thankful- 
ness into the cold wintry sky, and finally retreated 
under his ivy-bush at night, happy and contented 
a3 before. 

But that terrible storm lasted for weeks without 
intermission j or, if it did intermit, it was but to a 
partial thaw, which the night of frost soon bound 
up again, as firmly, or more firmly than ever. 

Many other birds besides himself came to the 
holly-tree for berries, and it was wonderful how 
they disappeared, first from one branch, and then 
from another : but still the Robin sang on. He 
poured out his little song of thanks after every 
meal. That was his rule: Other birds would jeer 
at him sometimes, but he could not be much moved 
by jeers. He had brought his bravery, and his 
patience, and his hope into the field against what- 
ever troubles might arise, and a few foolish jests 
would not trouble a spirit so strung up to cheerful 
endurance. 

“ I will sing the old Tortoise awake yet,” said 
he, many and many a time, when, after chanting 
his little thanksgiving in the holly-tree, he would 
hover about the spot where his friend lay asleep in 
the ground, and think of the Spring that would one 
day come, bringing its mild days and its juicy 
plants, and its thousand pleasant delights. 


100 


DAILY BREaD. 


I do not say, but that it was a great trial to our 
friend, when, after dreaming all these things in his 
day-dreams, he was roused up at last by feeling 
himself unusually cold and stiff ; and was forced to 
hurry to his ivy home to recover himself at all. 

The alternations, too, of winter, are very trying. 
The long storm of many weeks ceased at last, and 
a fortnight of open weather ensued, which, although 
wet and cold, gave much more liberty to the birds, 
and allowed of greater plenty of food. The Robin 
could now hop once more on the grass round the 
fountain, and get at a few worms, and pick up a few 
seeds. And he was so delighted with the change, 
that he half hoped the winter was over ; and he sat 
in the laurel tree by the Tortoise's cave, and poured 
out long ditties of anticlpative delight. But the 
bitterest storm of all was yet in store, — the storm of 
disappointed hope. ♦ 

Oh, heavy clouds, why did you hang so darkly 
over the earth just before the Christmas season ? 
Oh, why did the fields become so white again, and 
the trees so laden with snow-wreaths, and the 
waters so frozen and immoveable, just when all 
human beings wanted to rejoice and be glad? Did 
you come — perhaps you did ! — to rouse to tender 
pity and compassionate love, the hearts of all who 
wished to welcome their Saviour with hosannas of 
joy? but who cannot forget, if they read the gospel 
of love, that whosoever does a kindness to one of 
the least of His disciples, does it unto Him. Surely, 
thus may the bitter cold, and the trying weather of 


DAILY BREAD. 


161 


a biting, snowy Christmas, be read. Surely, it 
calls aloud to every one, that now is the moment 
for clothing the naked, for feeding the hungry, and 
for comforting the afflicted. 

Heavily, heavily, heavily, it came down. There 
were two days in which the Robin never left his 
ivy-covered hole, but hunger took him at last to 
the holly-tree by the little gate. Its prickly leaves 
were loaded with snow, and on one side the stem 
could not be seen at all. Was it his fancy, or was 
the tree really much less than before ? He hopped 
from one white branch to another, and fancied that 
large pieces were gone. He peered under and 
over, picked at the leaves, and shook down little 
morsels of snow ; but nowhere, nowhere, nowhere, 
could a single berry be found ! 

The Robin flew about in distress, and in so doing 
caught sight of a heap of holly, laurel, and bay 
branches that were laid aside together to be carried 
up to the house to decorate its walls. He picked 
two or three of the berries from them as they lay 
there, — ripe, red berries, such as he had gathered 
but lately from the tree ; and then came the gar- 
dener by, who carried the whole away. He flew 
after the man as he walked, and never left him 
until he disappeared with his load into the house. 
Its unfriendly doors closed against the little wan- 
derer, and no one within knew of the wistful eyes 
which had watched the coveted food out of sight. 

“ I have eaten ; let me be thankful,” was the 
Robin’s resolute remark, as he flew away from the 
M 


162 


DAILY BREAD. 


house and returned to the holly tree, which had so 
lately been his storehouse of hope, and from its 
now stripped and barren branches, poured out, as 
before, his lay of glad thanksgiving for what he 
had had. 

Not a breath of wind was blowing, not a leaf 
stirred ; not a movement of any kind took place, 
save when some overloaded branch dropped part 
of its weight of snow on the ground below ; as the 
sweet carol of the still hungry little bird rose 
through the air on that dark, still, winter’s after- 
noon. 

What did it- tell of? Oh, surely, that clear bell- 
like melody, that musical tone, that exquisite har- 
monious trill, told of something, — of something, I 
mean, besides the tale of a poor little desolate bird, 
whose food had been snatched away before his 
eyes, and who might be thought to have eaten his 
last meal. 

Surely, those solitary notes of joy, poured into 
the midst of a gloom so profound, were as an 
angel’s message, coming with a promise of peace 
and hope, at a moment when both seemed dead and 
departed. 

Homeward from his day’s work of business, there 
passed by, at that moment, the owner and inhabi- 
tant of the little suburban villa. It had been a 
melancholy day to him, for it was saddened by 
painful recollections. It was the anniversary of 
the day on which his wife had been laid in her 
churchyard grave, and since that event two sons 


DAILY BREAD. 


163 


had sailed for the far-off land of promise, which 
puts a hemisphere between the loved and loving on 
earth. So that far-distant land held them, whilst 
one — not so distant, perhaps, but more unattainable 
for the present — held the other. No wonder, there- 
fore, that on that owner’s face, as he approached 
his home, there hung a cloud of suffering and care, 
which not even the thought of the Christmas-day 
at hand, and the children yet spared to his hearth, 
could prevent or dispel. 

Verily the autumn of man’s life comes down 
upon him as the autumn season descends upon the 
earth. Clouds and tears mixed with whatever 
brightness may remain. 

All at once, however, the abstracted look of 
sorrow is startled. What is it that he hears ? He 
is passing outside the little plantation which skirts 
the grounds. He is close to the little gate near 
which the holly-tree grows. He pauses, — he stops, 
— he lifts up those troubled eyes. Surely, a whole- 
some tear is stealing over the cheek. Beautiful, 
tender, affecting, as the voice of the cuckoo in 
spring, there swept over the listener’s heart, the 
autumnal song of the Robin. Sing on, sing on, 
from the top of your desolate tree, oh little bird 
of cheerfulness and hope ! Pour out again that 
heaven-taught music of contentment with the hour 
that now is. Shalt thou be confident of protection, 
and man destitute of hope? Shalt thou , in the 
depth of thy winter’s trial, have joy and peace, and 
man never look beyond the cloud ? 


164 


DAILY BREAD. 


Poor little innocent birl, he sang his pretty song 
to an end, and then he flew away. Quarrel not 
with him, if in painful recollection of the holly- 
berries that had been carried into the house, he 
hovered round its windows and doors, with anxious 
and curious stealth. Whether across the middle of 
one window he observed a tempting red cluster 
hanging down inside, no one can say. But the 
tantalizing pain of such a sight, if he felt it, was 
soon over, for just then the window was opened, 
and along its outside ledge something was strewn 
by a careful hand. The window was closed again 
immediately, and, whoever it was within retreated 
backwards into the room. 

From a standard rose-bush, whither he had 
flown, when the window was opened, our little 
friend watched the affair. 

Presently a fragrant odour seemed to steal 
towards him, — something unknown yet pleasant, 
something tempting and very nice. Was there any 
risk to be feared? All seemed quiet and still. 
Should he venture ? Ah, that odour again ! it was 
irresistible. 

In another minute he was on the ledge, and 
boldly, as if a dozen invitations had bidden him 
welcome to the feast, he was devouring crumb after 
crumb of the scattered bread. 

A burst of delighted laughter from within broke 
upon his elysium of joy for a moment, and sent 
him back with sudden flight to the rose-bush. But 
no disaster ensued, and he was tempted again and 
again. 


DAILY BREAD. 


165 


The children within might well laugh at the 
saucy bird, whom their father had, by his gift of 
bread-crumbs, tempted to the place. They laughed 
at the bold hop, — the eager pecking, — the brilliant 
bead-like eye of their new guest, — and at the bright 
red of his breast; but it was a laugh that told of 
nothing but kind delight. 

“ Little bits of things do accidentally turn up 
always, indeed ! ” said the Robin to himself, as he 
crept into his ivy hole that evening to sleep ; and 
he dreamt half the night of the wonderful place and 
the princely fare. And next morning, long before 
anybody was awake and up, he was off to the 
magical window-ledge again, but neither children 
nor bread-crumbs were there : — (how was he to 
know without experience about breakfast hours, 
and the customs of social life?) So it almost 
seemed to him as if his evening’s meal had been a 
dream, too good a thing to be true, or if it had ever 
been true, too good to return. Yet a sweeter song 
was never heard under a summer sun, than that with 
which the Robin greeted that early day, the Christ- 
mas morning of the year. 

Perched in the laurel-bush near the Tortoise’s 
retreat, he told his sleeping friend a long, mar- 
vellous tale of his yesterday’s adventures, and pro- 
mised him more news against the time when he 
should return to wake him up in the spring. 

Nor did he promise in vain ; for whether the 
Tortoise would be patient enough to listen or not, 
there was no doubt the Robin had soon plenty 


166 


DAILY BREAD. 


to tell. He had to tell, not only of the meal that 
was spread for him in due time that very Christ- 
mas day, by those suddenly raised up friends 
— but of the daily meal that henceforth never 
failed ; of the curious tiny house that was erected 
for him at the end of the ledge, which, carpeted 
as it was with cotton wool and hay, formed almost 
too warm a roosting place for his hardy little 
frame. 

But even to the Tortoise he could never tell all 
he had felt during that wonderful winter; for he 
could never explain to any one the mysterious 
friendship which grew up between himself and 
his protectors. He could never describe properly 
the friendly faces that sat round the breakfast-table 
on which at last he was allowed to hop about 
at will. 

He told, however, how he used to sing on the 
rose-tree outside, every morning of every day, to 
welcome the waking of his friends, and how, in 
the late afternoons, the father would sometimes 
open the window, and sit there alone by himself, 
listening to his song. 

“ Come, come, my little friend,” remarked the 
Tortoise, when be did awake at last, and had come 
out of his cavern-bed, and heard the account; “I 
have been asleep for a long time, and I dare say 
have been dreaming all manner of fine things my- 
self, if I could but think of them. Now, I suspect 
you have had a nap, as well. However, I am very 
glad to see you alive, and not so half-starved look- 


DAILY BREAD. 


167 


ing as I expected. But as to your having sung 
every day, and had plenty to eat every day, and 
been so happy all the time, — take my advice, don’t 
try to cram older heads than your own with tra- 
vellers’ tales ! ” 




NOT LOST, BUT GONE BEFORE. 

“ Will none of you, in pity 

To those you left behind, disclose the secret ? ” 

Blair’s Grave,. 

W ONDER what becomes of the Frog, 
when he climbs up out of this world, 
and disappears, so that we do not see 
even his shadow ; till, plop ! he is among 
us again, when we least expect him. Does anybody- 
know where he goes to ? Tell me, somebody, 
pray ! ” 

Thus chattered the grub of a Dragon-fly, as he 
darted about with his numerous companions, in 
and out among the plants at the bottom of the 
water, in search of prey. 

The water formed a beautiful pond in the centre 
of a wood. Stately trees grew around it and re- 
flected themselves on its surface, as on a polished 
mirror; and the bulrushes and forget-me-nots which 
fringed its sides, seemed to have a two-fold life, so 
perfect was their image below. 



NOT LOST, BUT GONE BEFORE. 169 

“ Who cares what the Frog does ? ” answered 
one of those who overheard the Grub’s inquiry ; 
“ what is it to us ?” 

“ Look out for food for yourself,” cried another, 
“ and let other people’s business alone.” 

“ But I have a curiosity on the subject,” ex- 
postulated the first speaker. “ I can see all of you 
when you pass by me among the plants in the 
water here ; and when I don’t see you any longer, 
I know you have gone further on. But I followed 
a Frog just now as he w r ent upwards, and all at 
once he went to the side of the water, and then 
began to disappear, and presently he was gone. 
Did he leave this world, do you think ? And what 
can there be beyond?” 

“ You idle, talkative fellow,” cried another, 
shooting by as he spoke, “ attend to the world you 
are in, and leave the i beyond,’ if there is a i be- 
yond,’ to those that are there. See what a morsel 
you have missed with your wonderings about no- 
thing.” So saying, the saucy speaker seized an 
insect which was flitting right in front of his 
friend. 

The curiosity of the Grub was a little checked 
by these and similar remarks, and he resumed his 
employment of chasing prey for a time. 

But, do what he would, he could not help think- 
ing of the curious disappearance of the Frog, and 
presently began to tease his neighbours about it 
again, What becomes of the Frog when he leaves 
this world ? being the burden of his inquiry. 


170 NOT LOST, BUT GONE BEFORE. 

The minnows eyed him askance and passed on 
without speaking, for they knew no more than he 
did of the matter, and yet were loth to proclaim 
their ignorance ; and the eels wriggled away in the 
mud out of hearing, for they could not bear to be 
disturbed. 

The Grub got impatient, but he succeeded in 
inspiring several of his tribe with some of his own 
curiosity, and then went scrambling about in all 
directions with his followers, asking the same un- 
reasonable questions of all the creatures he met. 

Suddenly there was a heavy splash in the water, 
and a large yellow Frog swam down to the bottom 
among the grubs. 

“ Ask the Frog himself, ” suggested a Minnow, 
as he darted by overhead, with a mischievous glance 
of his eye. And very good advice it seemed to be, 
only the thing was much easier said than done. 
For the Frog was a dignified sort of personage, 
of whom the smaller inhabitants of the water 
stood a good deal in awe. It required no com- 
mon amount of assurance to ask a creature of his 
standing and gravity, where he had been to, and 
where he had come from. He might justly consider 
such an inquiry as a very impertinent piece of 
curiosity. 

Still, such a chance of satisfying himself was not 
to be lost, and after taking two or three turns round 
the roots of a water-lily, the Grub screwed up his 
courage, and approaching the Frog in the meekest 
manner he could assume, he asked — 


NOT LOST, BUT GONE BEFORE. 171 

“ Is it permitted to a very unhappy creature to 
speak?” 

The Frog turned his gold-edged eyes upon him 
in surprise, and answered — 

“Very unhappy creatures had better be silent. 
I never talk but when I am happy.” 

“ But I shall be happy if I may talk,” inter- 
posed the Grub, as glibly as possible. 

“Talk away, then,” cried the Frog; “what c?ji 
it matter to me?” 

“ Respected Frog,” replied the Grub, “but it is 
something I want to ask you.” 

“ Ask away,” exclaimed the Frog, not in a very' 
encouraging tone, it must be confessed; but still 
the permission was given. 

“What is there beyond the world?” inquired 
the Grub, in a voice scarcely audible from emotion. 

“ What world do you mean ?” cried the Frog, 
rolling his goggle eyes round and round. 

“ This world, of course ; — our world,” answered 
the Grub. 

“This pond, you mean,” remarked the Frog, 
with a contemptuous sneer. 

“ I mean the place we live in, whatever you 
may choose to call it,” cried the Grub pertly. “ I 
call it the world.” 

“Do you, sharp little fellow?” rejoined the 
Frog. “ Then what is the place you don't live in, 
the ‘beyond' the world, eh?” 

And the Frog shook his sides with merriment as 
he spoke. 


172 NOT LOST, BUT GONE BEFORE. 

“ That is just what I want you to tell me,” re- 
plied the Grub briskly. 

“Oh, indeed, little one!” exclaimed Froggy, 
rolling his eyes this time with an amused twinkle. 
“ Come, I shall tell you then. It is dry land.” 

There was a pause of several seconds, and thef 
“ Can one swim about there ?” inquired the Grut\ 
in a subdued tone. 

“ I should think not,” chuckled the Frog. “Dry 
land is not water, little fellow. That is just what it 
is not.” 

“But I want you to tell me what it is” persisted 
the Grub. 

“ Of all the inquisitive creatures I ever met, you 
certainly are the most troublesome,” cried the Frog. 
“ Well, then, dry land is something like the sludge 
at the bottom of this pond, only it is not wet, be- 
cause there is no water.” 

“ Really !” interrupted the Grub, “ what is there 
then?” 

“ That’s the difficulty,” exclaimed Froggy. 
“ There is something, of course, and they call it 
air ; but how to explain it I don’t know. My own 
feeling about it is, that it’s the nearest approach to 
nothing, possible. Do you comprehend?” 

“ Not quite,” replied the Grub, hesitating. 

“Exactly; I was afraid not. Now just take my 
advice, and ask no more silly questions. No good 
can possibly come of it,” urged the Frog. 

“ Honoured Frog,” exclaimed the Grub, “ I 
must differ from you there. Great good will, as I 


NOT \ LOST, BUT GONE BEFORE. 173 

think, come o>f it, if my restless curiosity can be 
stilled by obtaining the knowledge I seek. If I 
learn to.be consented where I am, it will be some- 
thing. At presjent I am miserable and restless 
under my ignorajnce.” 

“ You are a vWy silly fellow,” cried the Frog, 
“ who will not be\ satisfied with the experience of 
others. I tell you\ the thing is not worth your 
troubling yourself a\bout. But, as I rather admire 
your spirit, (which, nor so insignificant a creature, 
is astonishing,) I wilx make you an offer. If you 
choose to take a seat t\n my back, I will carry you 
up to dry land myself, '.and then you can judge for 
yourself what there is \there, and how you like it. 

I consider it a foolish ex periment, mind, but that is 
your own look out. I npake my offer, to give you 
pleasure.” 

“ And I accept it with ia gratitude that knows no 
bounds,” exclaimed the enthusiastic Grub. 

“ Drop yourself down on my back, then, and 
cling to me as well as you ''can. For, remember, if 
you go gliding off, you will be out of the way when 
I leave the water.” 

The Grub obeyed, and the Frog, swimming gently 
upwards, reached the bulrushes by the water’s side. 

“ Hold fast,” cried he, all at once, and then, 
raising his head out of the pond, he clambered up 
the bank, and got upon the grdss. 

“ Now, then, here we are,” exclaimed he. “What 
do you think of dry land?” 

But no one spoke in reply. 


174 NOT LOST, BUT GONE BEFORE. 

u Halloo! gone?” he continued £ “ that’s just 
what I was afraid of. He has floated off my back, 
stupid fellow, I declare. Dear, deafr, how unlucky ! 
but it cannot be helped. And, (perhaps, he may 
make his way to the water’s ed^e here after all, 
and then I can help him out. JL will wait about 
and see.” 

And away went Froggy, 'With an occasional 
jaunty leap, along the grass )by the edge of the 
pond, glancing every now and ' then among the bul- 
rushes, to see if he could s>py the dark, mailed 
figure of the Dragon-fly Grufo. 

But the Grub, meanwhile? Ah, so far from 
having floated off the Frig’s back through care- 
lessness,, he had clung to ^t with all the tenacity of 
hope, and the moment cairfre when the mask of his 
face began to issue from tlie water. 

But the same moment tsent him reeling from his 
resting-place into the pond, panting and struggling 
for life. A shock seeme d to have struck his frame, 
a deadly faintness succeeded, and it was several 
seconds before he could recover himself. 

“Horrible!” cried hfe, as soon as he had rallied 
a little. “ Beyond this, world there is nothing but 
death. The Frog has deceived me. He cannot go 
there , at any rate.” 

And with these wdrds, the Grub moved away to 
his old occupations ;; his ardour for inquiry griev- 
ously checked, though his spirit was unsubdued. 

He contented himself for the present, therefore, 
with talking over what he had done, and where he 


NOT LOST, BUT GONE BEFORE. 175 

had been, with his friends. And who could listen 
unmoved to such a recital? The novelty, the 
mystery, the danger, the all but fatal result, and 
the still unexplained wonder of what became of the 
Frog, — all invested the affair with a romantic 
interest, and the Grub had soon a host of followers 
of his own race, questioning, chattering, and con- 
jecturing, at his heels. 

By this time the day was declining, and the 
active pursuit of prey was gradually becoming sus- 
pended for a time ; when, as the inquisitive Grub 
was returning from a somewhat protracted ramble 
among the water-plants, he suddenly encountered, 
sitting pensively on a stone at the bottom of the 
pond, his friend the yellow Frog. 

“ You here!” cried the startled Grub; “ you 
never left this world at all then, I suppose. What 
a deception you must have practised upon me ! 
But this comes of trusting to strangers, as I was 
foolish enough to do.” 

u You perplex me by your offensive remarks,” 
replied the Frog, gravely. “ Nevertheless, I for- 
give you, because you are so clumsy and ignorant, 
that civility cannot reasonably be expected from 
you, little fellow. It never struck you, I suppose, 
to think what my sensations w r ere, when I landed 
this morning on the grass, and discovered that 
you were no longer on my back. Why did you 
not sit fast as I told you? But this is always 
the way with you foolish fellows, who think you 
can fathom and investigate everything. You are 


176 NOT LOST, BUT GONE BEFORE. 

thrown over by the first practical difficulty you 
meet.” 

“ Your accusations are full of injustice,” ex- 
claimed the indignant Grub. 

It was clear they were on the point of quarrel- 
ling, and would certainly have done so, had not the 
Frog, with unusual magnanimity, desired the Grub 
to tell his own story, and clear himself from the 
charge of clumsiness if he could. 

It was soon told; the Frog staring at him in 
silence out of those great goggle eyes, while he 
went through the details of his terrible adventure. 

“ And now,” said the Grub, in conclusion, “ as 
it is clear that there is nothing beyond this world 
but death, all your stories of going there yourself 
must be mere inventions. Of course, therefore, if 
you do leave this world at all, you go to some other 
place you are unwilling to tell me of. You have 
a right to your secret, I admit; but as I have no 
wish to be fooled by any more travellers’ tales, 1 
will bid you a very good evening.” 

“ You will do no such thing, till you have listened 
as patiently to my story as I have done to yours,” 
exclaimed the Frog. 

“ That is but just, I allow,” said the Grub, and 
stopped to listen. 

Then the Frog told how he had lingered by the 
edge of the pond, in the vain hope of his approach, 
how he had hopped about in the grass, how he had 
peeped among the bulrushes. “ And at last,” con- 
tinued he, 11 though I did not see you yourself, I 


NOT LOST, BUT GONE BEFORE. 177 

saw a sight which has more interest for you, than 
for any other creature that lives, ” and there he 
paused. 

“And that was?” asked the inquisitive. Grub, 
his curiosity reviving, and his wrath becoming 
appeased. 

“Up the polished green stalk of one of those 
bulrushes,” continued the Frog, “ I beheld one of 
your race slowly and gradually climbing, till he had 
left the water behind him, and was clinging firmly 
to his chosen support, exposed to the full glare 
of the sun. Rather wondering at such a sight, con- 
sidering the fondness you all of you show for the 
shady bottom of the pond, I continued to gaze, and 
observed presently, — but I cannot tell you in what 
way the thing happened, — that a rent seemed to 
come in your friend’s body, and by degrees, gra- 
dually and after many struggles, there emerged 
from it one of those radiant creatures who float 
through the air I spoke to you of, and dazzle the 
eyes of all who catch glimpses of them as they pass, 
— a glorious Dragon-fly ! 

“ As if scarcely awakened from some perplexing 
dream, he lifted his wings out of the carcase he 
was forsaking; and though shrivelled and damp at 
first, they stretched and expanded in the sunshine, 
till they glistened as if with fire. 

“ How long the strange process continued, I can 
scarcely tell, so fixed was I in astonishment and 
admiration ; but I saw the beautiful creature at last 
poise himself for a second or two in the air before 
N 


178 NOT LOST, BUT GONE BEFORE. 

he took flight. I saw the four gauzy pinions flash 
back the sunshine that was poured on them. I 
heard the clash with which they struck upon the 
air ; and I beheld his body give out rays of glitter- 
ing blue and green as he darted along, and away, 
away, over the water in eddying circles that seemed 
to know no end. Then I plunged below to seek 
you out, rejoicing for your sake in the news I 
brought.” 

The Frog stopped short, and a long pause fol- 
lowed. 

At last — “ It is a wonderful story,” observed the 
Grub, with less emotion than might have been 
-expected. 

“A wonderful story, indeed,” repeated the Frog; 
“may I ask your opinion upon it?” 

“ It is for me to defer mine to yours,” was the 
Grub’s polite reply. 

“ Good ! you are grown obliging, my little friend,” 
remarked the Frog. “ Well then, I incline to the 
belief, that what I have seen accounts for your other- 
wise unreasonable curiosity, your tiresome craving 
for information about the world beyond your own.” 

“ That were possible, always provided your ac- 
count can be depended upon,” mused the Grub, 
with a doubtful air. 

“ Little fellow,” exclaimed the Frog, “ remember 
that your distrust cannot injure me, but may deprive 
yourself of a comfort.” 

“ And you really think, then, that the glorious 
creature you describe was once a — ” 


NOT LOST, BUT GONE BEFORE. 179 

“ Silence,” cried the Frog ; “I am not prepared 
with definitions. Adieu ! the shades of night are 
falling on your world. I return to my grassy home 
on dry land. Go to rest, little fellow, and awake 
in hope.” 

The Frog swam close to the bank, and clambered 
up its sides, while the Grub returned to his tribe, 
who rested during the hours of darkness, from their 
life of activity and pursuit. 

***** 

“ Promise !” uttered an entreating voice. 

“ I promise,” was the earnest answer. 

u Faithfully ?” urged the first speaker. 

“ Solemnly,” ejaculated the second. 

But the voice was languid and weak, for the 
Dragon-fly Grub was sick and uneasy. His limbs 
had lost their old activity, and a strange oppression 
was upon him. 

The creatures whom he had been accustomed to 
chase, passed by him unharmed ; the water-plants 
over which he used to scramble with so much 
agility, were distasteful to his feet ; nay, the very 
water itself into which he had been born, and 
through which he was wont to propel himself with 
so much ingenuity, felt suffocating in its weight. 

Upwards he must go now, upwards, upwards ! 
That was the strong sensation which mastered every 
other, and to it he felt he must submit, as to some 
inevitable law. And then he thought of the Frog s 
account, and felt a trembling conviction that the 


180 NOT LOST, BUT GONE BEFORE. 

time had come, when the riddle of his own fate 
must be solved. 

His friends and relations were gathered around 
him, some of his own age, some a generation 
younger, who had only that year entered upon 
existence. All of them were followers and adhe- 
rents, whom he had inspired with his own enthusi- 
astic hopes; and they would fain have helped him, 
if they could, in this his hour of weakness. But 
there was no help for him now, but hope, and of 
that he possessed, perhaps, even more than they 
did. 

Then came an earnest request, and then a solemn 
promise, that, as surely as the great hopes proved 
true, so surely would he return and tell them so. 

“ But, ho ! if you should forget ! ” exclaimed 
one of the younger generation, timid and uneasy. 

“ Forget the old home, my friend?” ejaculated 
the sick Grub, “ forget our life of enjoyment here, 
the ardour of the chase, the ingenious stratagems, 
the triumph of success? Forget the emotions of 
hope and fear we have shared together, and which 
1 am bound, if I can, to relieve? Impossible !” 

“ But if you should not be able to come back to 
us,” suggested another. 

“ More unlikely still,” murmured the half-ex- 
hausted Grub. “ To a condition so exalted as the 
one in store for us, what can be impossible ? Adieu, 
my friends, adieu ! I can tarry here no longer. 
Ere long you may expect to see me again in a new 
and more glorious form. Till then, farewell !” 


NOT LOST, BUT GONE BEFORE. 181 

Languid, indeed, was the voice, and languid were 
the movements of the Grub, as he rose upwards 
through the water to the reeds and bulrushes that 
fringed its bank. Two favourite brothers, and a 
few of his friends, more adventurous than the rest, 
accompanied him in his ascent, in the hope of wit- 
nessing whatever might take place above ; but in 
this they were, of course, disappointed. 

From the moment, when, clinging with his feet 
to the stem of a bulrush, he emerged from his 
native element into the air, his companions saw him 
no more. 

Eyes fitted only for the watery fluid, were in- 
capable of the upward glance and power of vision 
which would have enabled them to pierce beyond 
it ; and the little coterie of discoverers descended, 
mortified and sorrowful, to the bed of the pond. 

The sun was high in the heavens when the 
Dragon-fly Grub parted from his friends, and they 
waited through the long hours of the day for his 
return ; at first, in joyful hope, then in tremulous 
anxiety ; and, as the shades of evening began to 
deepen around, in a gloomy fear, that bordered at 
last on despair. “ He has forgotten us,” cried 
some. “ A death from which he never can awake 
has overtaken him,” said others. “ He will re- 
turn to us yet,” maintained the few who clung to 
hope. 

But in vain messenger after messenger shot up- 
wards to the bulrushes, and to various parts of the 
pond, hoping to discover some trace of the lost one. 


182 NOT LOST, BUT GONE BEFORE. 

All who went out returned back dispirited from the 
vain and weary search, and even the most sanguine 
began to grow sick at heart. 

Night closed at last upon them, bringing a tem- 
porary suspension of grief ; but the beams of the 
next rising sun, while it filled all nature beside with 
joy and hopefulness, awakened them, alas ! to a 
sense of the bitterest disappointment, and a feeling 
of indignation at the deception which had been 
practised upon them. 

“We did very well without thinking of such 
things, ” said they ; “ but to have hopes like those 
held out, and to be deceived after all, — it is more 
than we can be expected to bear in patience.” 

And bear it in patience they did not. With a 
fierceness which nothing could restrain, they hurried 
about in the destructive pursuit of prey, carrying a 
terrible vengeance in all directions. 

And thus passed on the hours of the second day, 
and before night a sort of grim and savage silence 
was agreed upon among them, and they ceased to 
bewail either the loss of him they had loved, or 
their own uncertain destiny. 

But on the morning of the third day, one of the 
Grub’s favourite brothers came sailing into the 
midst of a group who were just rousing up from 
rest, ready to recommence the daily business of 
their life. 

There was an unnatural brilliancy about his eyes, 
which shone as they had never done before, and 
startled all who looked at them, so that even the 


NOT LOST, BUT GONE BEFORE. 183 

least observant had their attention arrested as he 
spoke. 

“ My friends,” said he, “ I was, as you know, 
one of our lost relative’s favourite brothers. I 
trusted him as if he had been a second self, and 
w r ould have pledged myself a thousand times for 
his word. Judge, then, what I have suffered from 
his promise remaining still unfulfilled. Alas ! that 
he has not yet returned to us !” 

The favourite brother paused, and a little set in 
a corner by themselves murmured out, u How 
could he ? The story about that other world is 
false.” 

“ He has not returned to us,” recommenced the 
favourite brother. “ But, my friends, I feel that I 
am going to him, wherever that may be, either to 
that new life he spoke about, or to that death from 
which there is no return. Dear ones ! I go, as he 
did, upwards, upwards, upwards ! An irresistible 
desire compels me to it ; but before I go, I renew 
to you — for myself and him — the solemn promise 
he once made to you. Should the great hopes be 
true, we will come back and tell you so. If I re- 
turn not — but rely on me ; my word is more to me 
than life. Adieu!” 

The Grub rose upwards through the water fol- 
lowed by the last of the three brothers, and one or 
two of the younger ones 5 but on reaching the brink 
of the pond, he seized on a plant of the forget-me- 
not, and clinging to its firm flower-stalk, clambered 
out of the water into the open air. 


184 NOT LOST, BUT GONE BEFORE. 

Those who accompanied him watched him as he 
left the water ; but, after that, they saw no more. 
The blank of his departure alone remained to them, 
and they sank down, sad and uneasy, to their home 
below. 

As before, the hours of the day passed on, and 
not a trace of the departed one was seen. In vain 
they dwelt upon the consoling words he had -spoken. 
The hope he had for a time re-awakened died out 
with the declining sun, and many a voice was 
raised against his treachery and want of love. “ He 
is faithless,” said some. “ He forgets us, like his 
brother, in his new fortune,” cried others. “ The 
story of that other world is false,” muttered the 
little set in the corner by themselves. Only a 
very few murmured to each other, “We will not 
despair.” 

One thing alone was certain, he did not return ; 
and the disappointed crowds took refuge from 
thought as before, in the fiercest rapine and excite- 
ment, scattering destruction around them, wherever 
they moved. 

Another day now elapsed, and then, in the early 
dawn following, the third and last brother crept 
slowly to a half-sleepy knot of his more particular 
friends, and roused them up. 

“ Look at my eyes,” said he ; “ has not a sudden 
change come over them ? They feel to me swelled 
and bursting, and yet I see with a clouded and im- 
perfect vision. Doubtless it is with me now, as it 
w r as with our dear ones before they left us. I am 


NOT LOST, BUT GONE BEFORE. 185 

oppressed, like them. Like them, an invisible 
power is driving me upwards, as they were driven. 
Listen, then ; for on my parting words you may 
depend. Let the other world be what it will, gor- 
geous beyond all we can fancy of it, blissful beyond 
all we can hope of it, do not fear in me an altered 
or forgetful heart. I dare not promise more. Yet, 
if it be possible, I will return. But, remember, 
there may well be that other world, and yet we, in 
ours, may misjudge its nature. Farewell, never 
part with hope. With your fears I know you never 
can part now. Farewell ! ” 

And he too went upwards, through the cool 
water to the plants that bordered its side; and from 
the leaf of a golden king-cup he rose out of his 
native element into that aerial world, into which 
the water-grub’s eye never yet could pierce. 

His companions lingered awhile near the spot 
where he had disappeared, but neither sign nor 
sound came to them. Only the dreary sense of 
bereavement reminded them that he once had been. 

Then followed the hours of vain expectation, the 
renewed disappointment, the cruel doubts, the hope 
that struggled with despair. 

And after this, others went upwards in suc- 
cession ; for the time came to all when the lustrous 
eyes of the perfect creature shone through the 
masked face of the Grub, and he must needs pass 
forward to the fulfilment of his destiny. 

But the result among those who were left was 
always the same. There were ever some that 


186 NOT LOST, BUT GONE BEFORE. 

doubted and feared, ever some that disbelieved 
and ridiculed, ever some that hoped and looked 
forward. 

Ah ! if they could but have known, poor things ! 
If those eyes, fitted for the narrow bounds of their 
water world, could have been endued with a power 
of vision into the purer element beyond, what a 
life-time of anxiety would they not have been 
spared ! What ease, what rest would have been 
theirs ! 

But belief would, in that case, have been an 
irresistible necessity, and hope must have changed 
her name. 

And the Dragon-fly, meanwhile, was he really 
faithless as they thought ? When he burst his 
prison-house by the water-side, and rose on glitter- 
ing wings into the summer air, had he indeed no 
memory for the dear ones he had so lately left? 
No tender concern for their griefs and fears ? No 
recollection of the promise he had made ? 

Ah ! so far from it, he thought of them amidst 
transports of his wildest flights, and returned ever 
and ever to the precincts of that world which had 
once been the only world to him. But in that 
region also, a power was over him superior to his 
own, and to it his will must submit. To the world 
of waters he could never more return. 

The least touch upon its surface, as he skimmed 
over it with the purpose of descent, brought on a 
deadly shock, like that which, as a water-grub, he 
had experienced from emerging into air, and his 


NOT LOST, BUT GONE BEFORE. 187 

wings involuntarily bore him instantly back from 
the unnatural contact. 

“ Alas ! for the promise made in ignorance and 
presumption, miserable Grub that I was,” was his 
bitter, constantly-repeated cry. 

And thus, divided and yet near, parted yet united 
by love, he hovered about the barrier that lay be- 
tween them, never quite, perhaps, without a hope 
that some accident might bring his dear ones into 
sight. 

Nor was his constancy long unrewarded, for as, 
after even his longest roamings, he never failed to 
return to the old spot, he was there to welcome 
the emancipated brother, who so soon followed 
him. 

And often, after that, the breezy air by the forest 
pond would resound in the bright summer after- 
noons with the clashing of Dragon-flies’ wings, as, 
now backwards, now forwards, now to one side, 
now to another, without turn or intermission, they 
darted over the crystal water, in the rapture of the 
new life. 

It might be, on those occasions, that some fresh 
arrival of kindred from below, added a keener joy 
to their already joyous existence. Sweet assuredly 
it was to each new-comer, when the riddle of his 
fate was solved, to find in the new region, not a 
strange and friendless abode, but a home rich with 
the welcomes of those who had gone before. 

Sweet also it was, and strange as sweet, to know 
that even while they had been trembling and fear- 


188 NOT LOST, BUT GONE BEFORE. 

ing in their ignorant life below, gleams from the 
wings of those they lamented were dropping like 
star-rays on their home, reflected hither and thither 
from the sun that shone above. Oh ! if they could 
but have known ! 

***** 
Beautiful forest pond, crowded with mysterious 
life, of whose secrets we know so little, who would 
not willingly linger by your banks for study and 
for thought? There, where the beech-tree throws 
out her graceful arms, glorying in the loveliness 
that is reflected beneath. There, where in the 
nominal silence the innocent birds pour out their 
music of joy. There, where the blue forget-me- 
not tells its tale of old romance, and the long 
grasses bend over their pictured shadows. There, 
where the Dragon-flies still hover on the surface of 
the water, longing to reassure the hearts of the 
trembling race, who are still hoping and fearing 
below. 




MOTES IN THE SUNBEAM. 


« Then by a sunne*beam I will climbe to thee.” — G eo. Herbert. 


T was a bright, sunshiny day at Christ- 
mas-tide, when, once upon a time, two 
little girls were sitting on their mam- 
ma’s sick-bed. One was a very little 
thing, who could only just talk, and she was leaning 
her curly head against the bed-post. The other, 
some two or three years older, was sitting on a 
pillow near her mother. The children were not 
talking much, for there was a new baby in the 
house, and everybody was very quiet, though very 
happy ; and these two little sisters of the new-comer 
had only been admitted to see poor mamma, on 
condition that they would be very good and make 
no noise. 

But the active spirits of young animals cannot be 
long kept under ; and so it happened that a strong 
gleam of winter sunshine, entering into the room 
through a half-opened shutter, shot right across the 



190 MOTES IN THE SUNBEAM. 

middle of the bed, and attracted the eyes and atten- 
tion of both the children ; for up and down in this 
narrow strip of light danced innumerable sparkling 
motes. The elder child, the Kate of our story, had 
a little open box in her hand, and she stretched it 
out, up and down, into the beam, and whispered 
in a half-giggle of delight, “ I’ll catch the stars.” 
Her mamma looked on and smiled, for the merry 
Kate made the play very amusing to herself. She 
pretended to catch the shining motes in the empty 
box ; and then put on a face of mock surprise and 
disappointment at finding nothing inside when she 
peeped to see. Moreover, she kept up a little talk 
all the time: ft There’s one: — oh, he’s such a 
beauty ! — I must have him !” and then she dashed 
the box once more into the streak of light. 

But this sport and the smiles on mamma’s face 
soon became irresistible to the little Undme-child 
by the bed-post, and she said, very gently, “ Give 
me some, too.” 

“ Some ‘what?’ my little Undine?” asked 
Mamma : “ what are they ? ” 

Undine glanced at her mother, and then at the 
motes, and then she said, “ Stars ; ” — but there 
was a misgiving look on her face as she spoke. 

“ No, they’re not stars, — are they, Mamma?” 
observed the wiser Kate : “ they’re nothing but 
dust ; ” — and the box danced about quicker than 
ever. 

“ They’re not dust,” pouted the offended little 
one : “ they’re stars ! ” 


MOTES IN THE SUNBEAM. 191 

“Well then, here, you shall have a boxful,” 
cried Kate, thrusting the box on to Undine’s lap, 
and covering it over with her pinafore : “ Take 
care of them — take care of them — or they’ll all go 
out.” 

Very carefully and slowly did Undine uncover 
the box, and with a very grave and inquiring face 
did she examine it both inside and out, in search of 
the stars ; and then, in one of those freaks of change 
so common to children, she burst into a gay laugh, 
tossed the box up like a ball, and cried out, 
“They’re nothing but dust — nothing but nasty, 
dirty dust ! There they go ! ” 

And, “ There they go ! ” echoed Kate ; and 
forthwith the children commenced a jumping and 
noise, which quickly brought the nurse to the 
room, and an order for the removal of the riotous 
little damsels. 

“ But, Mamma,” inquired Kate, in a grave whis- 
per, before she went away, “ why does the dust look 
so like stars ? ” 

“ Because the sun sent his light upon it,” an- 
swered Mamma. “ Sunshine is like love, Kate, — 
it makes everything shine with its own beauty. 
You and Undine,” added she, kissing her little 
girl’s fat cheek, “ are stars in my eyes, because I 
see you in the sunshine of love.” 

“ But we’re not ‘ nothing but nasty, dirty dust,’ 
in reality,” observed Kate, shaking her head very 
knowingly, as she led her little sister from the * 
room. 


192 MOTES IN THE SUNBEAM. 

Those of my young readers who have lived in 
the north of England, will remember the fine old 
Christmas hymn that is sung in that part of the 
country. They will remember the many happy 
snowy Christmas-eves on which they went to bed, 
delighted at the thought of hearing it in the night ; 
and how a curious thrill of pleasure came over them 
when they really were roused from sleep by the 
solemn and beautiful sounds of — 

“ Christians, awake ! salute the happy morn 
Whereon the Saviour of mankind was born ; ” 

— sung by the village waits, usually the church 
singers of the place. As I think of these things 
myself, I almost hear the grand old melody ; and 
can just fancy some little urchin, more hardy than 
the rest of his companions, creeping out of his snug 
bed to peep behind the blind at the well-known old 
men and girls, all wrapped up in great coats and 
cloaks, to protect them from the stormy December 
night. I can fancy, too, how, after feeling very 
chilly as he stood at the window, he would go back 
to the warm bed, and say how cold the poor waits 
must be ! and how, between whispering about the 
waits and listening to the music, those children 
would while away one of the happiest hours of 
merry Christmas ; and then, after hearing the 
sounds revive and die away in other more distant 
parts of the village, would drop asleep as easily as 
tired labourers at night. 

Well ! you wonder what this Christmas hymn 


MOTES IN THE SUNBEAM. 193 

lias to do with my story of Kate and Undine? 
Merely this, — that one of the verses begins thus, — 

“ Oh, may we keep and ponder in our mind, 

God’s wondrous love in saving lost mankind!” 

And this is taken from a passage in Scripture, to 
which I want to call your attention, — namely that, 
wherein it is said of the Virgin Mary, that she 
“kept and pondered in her heart” the wonderful 
things the shepherds had told her of our Saviour. 
Other people talked about them, and made a fuss 
about them, and then very likely forgot them; but 
Mary “pondered them in her heart;'’ a practice 
which has, alas ! gone sadly too much out of 
fashion ; for everybody now-a-days is so busy either 
learning or talking, that for “ pondering things in 
the heart ” there seems to be neither time nor incli- 
nation. 

Nevertheless, mothers are still more apt to do it 
than anybody else. Indeed, they are constantly 
pondering in their minds the things that their chil- 
dren say, or thejthings that people say of them. 
Sometimes they may ponder foolishly, but I hope 
not often, especially if they ponder in their hearts, 
and not in their heads only. 

Now the mother of Kate and Undine was a great 
ponderer; and as she had, just then especially, 
nothing else to do, you may be sure how she pon- 
dered over the pretty scene of her two little ones 
and the motes in the sunbeam. And the dust did 
look very like stars, she confessed to herself, as she 
lay looking up at the light. 

o 


194 MOTES IN THE SUNBEAM. 

“ But how wise,” thought she, “the sober Kate 
felt at her own superior knowledge ! how proud to 
recognize dust for dust, even under its most sunny 
aspect ! And yet how often, before life is ended, 
may she not make Undine’s mistake herself, and 
take even dust for stars, merely because the sun 
shines upon it ! ” 

And here the poor mamma uttered a short 
prayer that she might be enabled to instil good 
principles into her children’s minds, that so Kate, 
and Undine too, might know dust for dust when- 
ever they saw it, let the outward world shine upon 
it never so brightly. 

And then she looked up at the sunbeam, as it 
streamed across her sick 1 bed, till she thought it 
was like so many things, she felt her head becoming 
quite confused. 

It was like love, as she had said, — yes ; but it 
was like cheerfulness — like good-temper — like the 
Gospel charity : for do not the commonest things 
of life, and the dullest duties of life, shine, star-like, 
under their rays ? Yes ; but it was most of all 
like “ the peace of God, which passeth all under- 
standing for that lightens up the dark career of 
earthly existence, and leads the soul upward along 
the bright path of its rays, till it reaches the ever- 
lasting home of light itself. 

“ Ay, ay,” thought the mother, as she looked 
once more : “ Motes in the sunbeam as we are — 
miserable dust and ashes in ourselves — the light 
streams down upon us and transfigures us: we 


MOTES IN THE SUNBEAM. 105 

follow the light upwards, and become the children 
of light ourselves.” 

Her head had indeed become confused amidst 
similes and fancies, and half- waking dreams ; but 
before she could think the matter over, clearly and 
distinctly, she had fallen fast asleep. 



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